Files 00 - ? Miscellaneous
by Q. Alias
Summary: [WIP] [Alternate Timeline]. RETRIEVING FILES... SUCCESS. Miscellaneous data compiled from Red Queen decrypted logs. May provide useful insight into early Umbrella research, and Umbrella senior staff: Alexia Ashford, Albert Wesker, William Birkin. Early data of Subject 014 Harman incorporated in the logs. Data is unrestricted. Facilitating connection.
1. File 3 - Don't Befriend Psychos

**Don't Befriend Psychos**

 _Raccoon City, 1996_

Grayson watched Alfred pick through his suitcases, stop, inspect a cashmere suit still in the dry-cleaner's plastic. "It's just a party, Alfred," he said, and sipped his beer. Alfred had dropped by his apartment unexpectedly, had mentioned something about an Umbrella function he was intent on dragging Grayson to. He'd been surprisingly decent company too, probably because Alfred had taken his meds. "Just pick something. All your clothes are nice."

" _Party_?" said Alfred, as if Grayson had just insulted him.

"Yeah, party," said Grayson.

Alfred regarded him critically, his eyes the pale color of hoarfrost, a certain vacant craziness there, vibrating softly. "There are going to be people of critical importance there," he said, hanging the cashmere suit in Grayson's closet. He wore a shirt of white sea isle cotton, dark dress slacks, and a pair of shiny black wingtips. Alfred had always been a pretty sharp dresser, Grayson thought. Took a special pride in his appearance, like Alexia had. "Including Lord Spencer," he added, making a small adjustment to the cuff of his shirt. "Much as I detest the old bastard."

Grayson shook his head, helped himself to the slice of cold pizza he'd been carrying around on a greasy paper plate. Unlike Alfred, Grayson dressed casually, in a gunmetal button-up and jeans. "Still don't get along with Spencer, huh?" he said, around a mouthful of pizza. He tossed the pizza onto the plate, wiping his hands on his jeans. Then knocked back a mouthful of the lukewarm beer, Alfred watching him with disgusted fascination.

"You eat like a pig," said Alfred, frowning. His accent vaguely reminded Grayson of Freddie Mercury's accent, from a Munich interview he'd watched as a teenager in 1984, but slightly higher pitched, more effeminate. Then, "Yes, I don't get along with Spencer at all."

"Even after the old guy gave you Rockfort," said Grayson, finishing his pizza and beer, dropping both into the nearby trashcan. "You're hard to please, buddy."

"I don't trust him. You know that, Grayson," said Alfred, neatly hanging the rest of his clothes in the closet. "Though," he added, offhandedly, "I do enjoy my new position."

Grayson watched Alfred shut the closet, push the leather suitcases under the bed. "Planning on an extended stay?" he asked, lighting a cigarette.

"Why spend money on a hotel when I can simply stay here?"

"For a rich guy," he said, blowing smoke, "you're awful fucking cheap, Al."

"Alfred," he corrected. "You know I hate that 'Al' rubbish." Alfred paused, rubbing the space between his eyes, his nails perfectly manicured. "Which is precisely why you do it."

Grayson grinned, winking.

Alfred frowned, pointlessly smoothed back his Harlow-gold hair, which was slicked against the curve of his narrow skull. Grayson had often heard as a kid, mostly from girls, that Alfred looked like a young David Bowie, and agreed to some extent with the comparison; though there was a kind of reptilian insinuation in his appearance, a strange quality that suggested cold-bloodedness. Taking out a pack of Dunhills, Alfred lit one with an antique silver flip-lighter, etched with the Ashford coat-of-arms: a falcon, or perhaps an eagle, clutching a halberd in its talons, superimposed over a shield. Grayson always thought there was something vaguely Germanic about their coat-of-arms, remembering Alexia telling him that her ancestors had come from Germany and Sweden. "Anyway," said Alfred, strolling from the room, Grayson following closely, "the function is this Saturday. You still have a suit, yes?"

"Yep," said Grayson. He hadn't worn the suit since he'd come to Raccoon City, because he'd never needed to; he worked at a dive-bar. "What's the function about, exactly?"

"Company anniversary, some announcements regarding medical breakthroughs. Publicity, in short." Alfred shrugged his tapered shoulders, blew smoke. In his small living-room, Alfred sat on his couch, a nice leather piece Grayson had bought off an elderly couple. An episode of Friends played on the television, Ross complaining as usual about his relationship woes. "This show is bloody stupid," remarked Alfred, finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out in the plastic ash-tray on Grayson's end table.

"Jill likes it," he said, and shrugged, finishing his cigarette too and dropping it into an old beer bottle, into the stale dregs.

Alfred made a face. Grayson knew he hated Jill. "You're still seeing that trollop?"

"Alexia's gone, Alfred." Saying something like that, while Alfred was in one of his lucid psychotic states especially, was a lot like playing Russian roulette, but with half of the bullets chambered. Thankfully, Alfred had been mentally sober for a while; Alfred, Grayson's father had told him on their last phone-call, had been keeping on his meds. "So yeah," he said. "I'm seeing Jill."

"Bloody half-jap," grunted Alfred, shaking his head.

"Don't go there, Alfred."

Alfred made a _pfft_ noise. "At least she isn't a half-ni—"

"Stop. Right. Now," said Grayson, enunciating each word.

"Fine," said Alfred, staring vacantly at the television now. "Wouldn't want to hurt your delicate sensibilities. Hippy."

Someone knocked on the door. Grayson opened it, saw Jill standing there, hands in the pockets of her rain-stained windbreaker. She'd cut her dark hair short around the jaw, into a kind of bob, regarded him mildly with large blue eyes, slight epicanthic suggestion in the corners, smiling with perfect white teeth. "Hey, babe," she said, and kissed him. "Would have come by earlier," she continued, brushing past him, "but I had orientation with S.T.A.R.S. Going to be weird, leaving the military." She halted, seeing Alfred. "Great."

"Oh, were you expecting to be alone?" said Alfred flippantly, smiling without mirth. "Well, isn't this absolute shit."

"Why is _he_ here, Grayson?" said Jill, looking at him.

"He came by," he said, and shrugged, closing the door behind her. "He's pretty much my brother, Jill. Can't just kick him out."

"Sure you could," she said.

"And I," said Alfred, walking his slim hand along the armrest, the fat sapphire of his ring catching the lamplight, along its smooth blue curve, "would just come right back."

Jill ignored Alfred. "We still going out this Saturday?"

Grayson had completely forgotten. He smacked the heel of his palm against his forehead and said, "Shit."

Alfred gave him a shit-eating grin.

Jill frowned.

"I'm sorry, Jill." Though some small part of him was glad he didn't have to go out now. Dates, Grayson had found, honestly bored him, because they almost always played out the same way: hello, food, random activity, kiss good night, maybe sex. "I have to go with Alfred to this Umbrella thing," he added, helpfully.

"And wouldn't you know," said Alfred, standing, lean and tall, "it's an invitation-only event. So unless you know someone in Umbrella, Jill, or are part of the press, I'm afraid you can't come." There was a sort of childish glee in Alfred's voice. He giggled, somewhat girlishly. "What a shame," he said.

"Why don't you jump back into your fucking carriage, and drive it all the way back to England, asshole?" she said.

"Oh, I would, but sadly the Queen revoked my license after I'd run over a couple gypsies. Bloody terrible, isn't it?"

Jill made a frustrated noise. "This is bullshit, Grayson," she said, whipping around and scowling at him. "You'd rather go to some Umbrella thing with Elton John over there—" she gestured at Alfred, who had found Grayson's good scotch, and was presently helping himself to a glass—"instead of someplace else with your girlfriend?"

Grayson avoided the question. "How's S.T.A.R.S? Meet your co-workers?"

"It's good, and no. Stop avoiding the fucking question."

"You know what they say about Asian women, Grayson," said Alfred, adding a bit of water to his scotch and sipping. "Bossy little things," he added, sucking at his teeth.

"I'm not fucking Asian," said Jill, looking at Alfred.

"You're half. Close enough."

"Piss off, Alfred."

"Alfred, shut the fuck up," said Grayson, pointing at him. "Before I deck you."

Alfred touched a hand to his chest, feigning offense. "How _rude_ , Grayson."

"Your sister's dead; Grayson's moved on. Get the fuck over it," said Jill.

An eerie quiet settled over Alfred then, his face an expressionless pale mask. "Say that again," he said, in a voice that made Grayson's blood run cold, made him think of a long, sharp stiletto knife dipping dangerously toward a jugular. And he knew that voice, knew it meant Alfred, like a cobra, was flaring his hood, preparing to strike. Instantly, Grayson moved into position, to intervene if Alfred got violent.

Jill went quiet, probably sensing Alfred's craziness. Then she said, "I'm leaving. Grayson, have fun," and left, slamming the door behind her.

"Goddamn it, Alfred."

"I don't like her," said Alfred, sniffing imperiously.

Saturday came. Grayson dressed in his black Burberry suit, borrowed one of Alfred's spare Rolex watches, because Alfred had insisted on it ("A man should accessorize," he said, jamming the watch onto his wrist. "Make sure the metals, like your watch, match your belt buckle..."), and some of his cologne, which was woody and fragrant, and more expensive than any cologne Grayson owned, which was the kind that came in boxes, and was sold in department stores.

Alfred wore the dark cashmere suit Grayson had seen earlier (Alfred informed him it was a Paul Smith suit, like it was important for him to know that), a thin gray overcoat, and leather Chelsea boots, which Alfred had spent thirty minutes polishing to an obnoxious anthracite shine. Alfred liked men's fashion, liked to talk about men's fashion, but Grayson didn't care about any of that, so he nodded along to whatever Alfred was saying, and stepped out of the apartment, locking the door behind them. "Bloody rain," remarked Alfred, as they stepped outside, onto the wet sidewalk, the colors of neon lights glittering on the pavement like an electric watercolor. "Have quite enough of it on Rockfort. Could do without it for a bit."

They walked to Grayson's car, the black '87 corvette Alfred had bought him, around the corner. A homeless man sitting in the doorway of a shuttered pawn-shop rattled an empty Spam tin at Alfred, who told him to piss off. Grayson, feeling bad for the man, dropped a dollar into the tin, which had been filled with a sparse collection of change.

When they arrived at the corvette, Alfred said, "You're still driving this thing? I bought this for you when it was brand bloody new, Grayson. It's been nearly ten years."

"Why get rid of a perfectly good car?" he asked, getting behind the wheel. "Still runs great."

"Why not invest in something newer?"

"Because, unlike you, I'm not rich," said Grayson, turning the keys in the ignition and driving, watching the wipers smear neon and car lights across his windshield.

"I could buy you a new car, Grayson."

"Like this one just fine, thanks," he said.

The Umbrella function was held in downtown Raccoon, at a historical hotel called The Heirloom. Walking inside was like walking sixty years into the past. The lobby was a slick blend of rattan cabana and art nouveau, like a 1930s Havana scene that had been designed by Alphonse Mucha. The hotel staff directed them to a large conference hall, decorated in the same fashion as the lobby, the expanse of bamboo floor crowded with chattering Umbrella personnel, all of them dressed as if they were attending the Oscars, sipping champagne flutes and smiling politely. One of the hotel staff took Alfred's coat and umbrella, at the door. Grayson didn't immediately recognize anyone in here, and supposed, considering how young most of them looked, these researchers were the newest generation of hires.

"You come as Alfred's date?" William Birkin appeared, smiling like a skull. He looked as if he'd actually slept, had put some effort into his appearance; he didn't look like a junky on the tweak. His tawny hair was neatly combed, and Birkin had actually shaved this time, his face several years younger now. He wore a nice blue suit, and a silk paisley tie, a metallic tang of aftershave wafting from him. "Then again, guess without his sister, he doesn't have a fucking date." Birkin grinned triumphantly.

Alfred whirled around, said something sharp and angry, and struck at Birkin. Grayson stepped between them, caught the punch in his shoulder; it burned badly. "Not worth the bullshit, Alfred." He glanced at one of the security guys, who was eyeballing them, from beside the buffet. "Cops."

"He's bloody security. Besides, the RPD is—"

Grayson knew Alfred was about to say that the RPD was in Umbrella's pocket; but he clamped his hand over Alfred's mouth, before he could. "There are reporters here," said Grayson quietly. "Shut up."

"Better listen to your boyfriend, Ashford," said Birkin.

Annette came over suddenly, and said to Birkin, pleadingly, "Please, not tonight, dear." She wore a blue cocktail dress, and red earrings veined with silver, a matching bracelet on her right wrist. Her pale hair was cut into a bob. Remembering Jill's hair, Grayson wondered if it was some kind of trend. "Come on. Let's go eat."

"Fine," said Birkin, starting to walk away with Annette. "Don't even know why Alfred's here anyway. Not even a fucking researcher."

Annette looked at Grayson, then Alfred. "Spencer will be here soon," she said to Birkin, soothingly. They left. Grayson heard Annette say, just before she was out of earshot, "Alfred's an Ashford. You know that's the only reason he's here..."

Grayson wanted to say something, but let it go. "Bye, Annette. Bill," he said, waving after them, watching them disappear into a throng of guests, lost now among the noise and people of the conference hall. He turned to Alfred. "You," he said, with a profound air, "really need to learn how to pick your battles."

"He insulted my sister," snapped Alfred, gesticulating in the direction the Birkins had gone. "Then insulted me! You heard Annette, didn't you? I order you to pummel them both, Grayson. Into bloody pulps—"

Grayson clamped his hand over Alfred's mouth again. The security guard was walking toward them. "Everything okay, gentlemen?" asked the man, regarding them from beneath the visor of his baseball cap, pulled low over his eyes.

"We're great. Just a lover's spat," Grayson lied, kissing Alfred's cheek and grinning. Alfred squirmed in his hold, like an ornery cat. "We've been arguing about carpet. I like carpet, but he hates it, says it's too much maintenance." His smile widened. "You know what I mean, man?"

The security guard just stared. Then he went away.

"Works every time," said Grayson, letting Alfred go.

"Don't you ever," said Alfred, wiping the saliva from his cheek, "do that again."

"Thought you liked guys, Alfred."

"I do, but you're far too rough for my liking," said Alfred, shaking his head. He swiped a champagne from a passing caterer and sipped primly. "I also like women," he added, helpfully.

"Yeah, I know. So I'm not your type?"

Alfred looked him over, like he was appraising art. "If you dressed like this more, you would be," he said, finishing the champagne and setting down the glass, on the edge of the buffet table. "Why. Are you curious, Grayson?" He smiled winningly at him. Grayson could almost see the sparkle on his teeth, like a still-shot of a shoujo boy, where the background would go all pink and sparkly, and there might be a rose in the guy's mouth.

"Afraid not," said Grayson, beaming. He helped himself to the food, piling random appetizers—lobster tails, croquettes, stuffed mushrooms, bruschetta, something called a malakoff—onto a small ceramic plate, Alfred following him. Though, had Grayson been gay, he was pretty sure Alfred would have been his type. "Like women too much, good buddy," he said, starting on his food. "Alexia spoiled me."

"Well, the offer's there if you ever change your mind," joked Alfred.

"I'll keep it in mind," said Grayson, laughing.

The rest of the function passed without further incident, actually went strangely smooth. Halfway into things, Spencer showed up in his power-chair, resembling a thin, bent tree, his hair and mustache like wispy white moss. He wore a tweed suit that looked as if it hadn't seen the light of day since 1931, and two-tone wingtips that looked too big for him, his ankles scrawny and pathetic in them, the ancient flesh webbed with dark varicose veins. Several tubes were wired to his body, connected to small bio-monitors on his chair.

When he saw Alfred, Spencer said, "Alfred, be a good lad and come here," and gestured like a grandfather wanting to see his favorite grandchild better. Alfred, Grayson decided, had become Spencer's new favorite, ever since Alexia had died. Grayson supposed it was because Alfred was Alexia's twin, the remaining grandchild of his late friend Edward Ashford. Or, Grayson thought, maybe Alfred was only treated so well because he was the company's biggest shareholder now, which seemed more likely.

"Lord Spencer," said Alfred, shaking Spencer's thin trembling hand. Grayson guessed Parkinson's. "Pleasure to see you, as always. I appreciate the invitation, sir."

"You've a right to be here," said Spencer, watching Alfred with foggy hazel eyes, nested in deep pockets of wrinkled flesh the color and texture of chalk-dust. Grayson looked at Spencer's skeletal hands, saw constellations of benign melanomas and varicose veins, like looking at a universe of sickness. "This company is as much your family's as it is mine." Spencer frowned, mouth lopsided, the corners of his lips wet, and shook his oblong head. "Poor Alexia," he remarked.

Grayson watched Alfred wince. "Indeed," said Alfred, politely. "She would have liked to be here, Lord Spencer."

"So young," said Spencer, and sighed, his breath coming like a burst of dusty air. "Well," he said, "I must find William Birkin regarding a matter. Enjoy the festivities, gentlemen." He whirred away on his power-chair, and was gone in the crowd.

"Conversations with him never last long, do they?" asked Grayson, staring at Alfred.

"He's an old, busy man, Grayson," said Alfred. "Doesn't have time to 'shoot the shit', as you would say."

Near midnight, the crowd started thinning. Grayson and Alfred remained behind, talking, and were approached by a young researcher.

The man had a harassed look, looked like the nerd in a 1980s sitcom. He wore a gray suit that was slightly too big for him, with a striped tie. His eyes were tired, behind the wire-frame glasses. "You're Alfred Ashford, aren't you?" he asked, mildly.

"Did you want something?" asked Alfred snippily.

"Your sister was Alexia Ashford, wasn't she?"

Alfred was expressionless, a strange coldness emanating from him, chilling the air. Grayson knew these conversations rarely ended well; Alexia was, outside of a few exceptions, like himself and Spencer, a taboo topic. The last guy who had asked about Alexia, a man named Robert Dorson, Alfred had imprisoned in the Rockfort compound. Far as Grayson knew, Bob was still serving time. "She was," said Alfred coolly.

The researcher seemed to shrink. "I-I just wanted to say, I'd read h-her work," he said. "I-impressive stuff."

Alfred's expression didn't change. He stared, silent.

"Probably better you go," said Grayson, gently nudging the man away. "Alfred, he's had a long day."

The man seemed to sense he was in danger, and quickly scurried away. Grayson turned to speak with Alfred, but realized Alfred was gone; he hadn't even seen him go, somehow. "Shit," said Grayson aloud, heading toward the doors to the conference hall. The attendant asked if he needed his coat, but Grayson said he didn't bring one, and that, please, he really needed to go, there was somewhere important he had to be.

He went to the parking garage next door, into the sodium-lit dark. A few people, guests from the function, crossed the worn asphalt, disappearing into their cars. It was oddly silent. Grayson made his way toward where he'd parked the corvette, heard a wet gurgle, and knew, instantly, some shit had gone down.

He found Alfred, standing over the researcher's dead body, the one who had asked about Alexia. A splash of arterial spray stained Alfred's cheek, the blade of the Fairbairn-Sykes knife that Alfred always carried wet with blood, shining in the light like liquid ruby. The researcher's throat had been slit wide open, a sloppy cut; Alfred hadn't even tried to be clean.

"Fucking _seriously_ , Alfred?" he said, looking at the corpse, the collar of the man's shirt completely soaked with blood, several postmortem stab-wounds in his chest.

"He shouldn't have asked about Alexia," said Alfred. "That," he added, staring vacantly at the corpse, his eyes wide and blue, and completely insane, "is too sacred for him."

"Jesus Christ," said Grayson, not precisely panicking—angrier, more than anything, at how inconvenient it all was—because he'd seen Alfred kill people before, and in worse ways. "Put the knife away and get his fucking ankles," he snapped. "Before someone comes. My trunk's not big enough for multiple bodies."

Alfred coolly wiped the blade clean with a cloth, wiped the blood that had gotten on the car. Then he took out his lighter, setting fire to the cloth, the fabric crumbling away to the asphalt in black motes. The knife disappeared under his pant-leg. Alfred grabbed the man's ankles—the man didn't weigh very much, but he was tall and lanky—and they dropped him into the trunk, sort of folded him on his side like a child. Grayson slammed the trunk shut, glancing at the blood on the asphalt. "Get in the car," he snapped.

"You," said Alfred, getting into the car, "don't give me bloody orders, Grayson."

"I just did," said Grayson, getting in too, pulling out of the parking space, hearing the thump of the body in the trunk. "We need to get rid of the body."

"Bring it to the Spencer estate," said Alfred. "The Arklay team could use it, perhaps."

"And risk Birkin finding out?" said Grayson, looking at him. "He works there. You honestly think he's not petty enough to report us?"

"Good point. I suppose I didn't think this through," he said, offhandedly. "Reflexive, at this point. You know?" Alfred smiled to himself. "Then again," he said, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him, "I don't think Birkin would report anything. It could bring the police knocking on Arklay's door."

"I thought you'd said, several times before, the RPD was fucking bought off?"

"Yes, but you always have that one annoying honest cop who wants to save the day," said Alfred, matter-of-factly. "And all it takes is one person to ruin something."

"Fuck it, we're burying the body," said Grayson.

He stopped at a twenty-four hour hardware store (Grayson was surprised there was even such a thing as twenty-four hour hardware stores; it seemed like one of those things that just didn't exist) and told Alfred to wait in the car. He put on an old but nice pair of leather gloves he kept in his car, and then bought a shovel, paying with cash. The sleepy cashier didn't even ask why someone dressed in a suit and gloves was buying a shovel after midnight, probably unwilling to become involved with what could potentially be a mafia matter, or knowing what it was for, and just happy to take the money. Grayson left, storing the shovel in the trunk with the body, which had gone absolutely stiff with rigor mortis.

He drove out to the Arklay Forest Reserve, toward Lake Whitley, where, thirteen years ago, Clancy and him had often hung out as teenagers. It was a relatively desolate expanse of forest, and Clancy knew all the good spots, had told him where they were. Grayson scoped a good spot to bury the body, then started digging. Alfred watched him, hands in his pockets. "If we go to prison," said Grayson, shoveling another pile of dirt over his shoulder, "you're going to be my jail-boyfriend, Alfred."

"Better you than some large ex-Hell's Angel named Bubba," said Alfred, picking at the drying blood on his cheek. "But really, you're worrying about nothing, Grayson." He took out the pack of Dunhills, lighting one with the flip-lighter, the flame illuminating his thin features in jack-o-lantern light, catching in his eyes like laser pinpoints. "I'll sort this all out." The lighter, and the Dunhills, vanished behind a dark lapel.

"Considering you're pretty much the kind of guy who always gets it first in the showers? Yeah, better me than Bubba," said Grayson, tossing more dirt out of the hole. "That said, if you can sort it out, why am I fucking digging this hole?"

"In case it doesn't work out," said Alfred, taking the cigarette between his fingers and blowing smoke. It was quiet out here, excluding the slight patter of the rain, the occasional rustle of some passing thing in the woods. "You know nothing is full-proof."

Grayson climbed out of the hole, watched Alfred splash the gas from Grayson's spare can onto the body, then take out a pack of tear-away matches that advertised The Heirloom, light all of them, and toss them into the hole. He'd kept the package, however, stowing it in his pocket. Immediately, the smell of cooking meat and burnt hair filled the air. "You owe me more gas," said Grayson, watching the fire.

"Bit of advice: carrying gas cans in your shitty corvette is a terrible idea, Grayson," said Alfred, diplomatically. "I did you a favor."

"Noted," said Grayson.

When the fire had fizzled out, and the researcher's body had been reduced to an unrecognizable charred husk, Grayson filled the hole again, then helped Alfred scrub out the trunk, the whole routine painfully familiar to him. He honestly didn't worry about anyone finding the body; in the early 90s, Umbrella had bought up most of the Reserve, so it was mostly private land now, and the Park Rangers had taken some serious budget cuts under Mayor Michael Warren's draconian administration. Still, there was always that small freak chance someone might find the body, so he'd wanted to prepare.

He drove back to the apartment, in silence. Alfred went to shower, and Grayson checked his answering machine. Jill had left a message, earlier that night.

"Hey, Grayson," said Jill, on the machine. "I wanted to say sorry about the other night. It wasn't fair, going off on you like that. So maybe we could do something, this coming weekend. I'll swing by your place later, and we'll talk. Okay?" The answering machine informed him there were no other messages.

"Cute," said Alfred, dressed in a red chenille robe. He was toweling himself off, heading toward the kitchen.

"Not now, Alfred."

Several days passed, and Jill never contacted him. Grayson assumed she'd gotten tied up with something at work, which worried him. Alfred had been going out more too, without saying anything, and that also worried him.

Jill showed up, unexpectedly, around noon, on Sunday. She kissed him, said, "Sorry I haven't been around," and helped herself to a beer in his fridge.

"Something happen?" he asked, carefully.

"S.T.A.R.S," she said, looking at him. "We've been investigating a string of disappearances."

Grayson's stomach knotted. He smiled. "Any luck?" he asked, retrieving a beer for himself.

"Not much," she said, leaning against his counter. "Proximity of the disappearances suggests the same perp. I mean, four people gone, in just a week?" Jill shook her head. "This guy on the team, guy by the name of Chris Redfield, thinks it's a serial killer. 'We don't know if they're dead yet', I told him."

Grayson knew, right then, that the perp was Alfred. Alfred, he'd long ago learned, couldn't exist very long without violence; it was an intrinsic component of his personal ecosystem. Take the violence away, and the rest of his biome fell apart. It also meant that Alfred hadn't been taking his meds as faithfully as his father had implied; either that, or Alfred had figured he didn't need them, here in Raccoon, because Grayson's father wasn't around to make him take them. "Any leads on the weirdness?" he asked, probing.

Jill scratched her head and nodded. "Sort of," she said, finishing her beer. "All the victims, they frequented Larry Malone's. You know the place, Grayson. That popular college bar on Ennerdale, always fucking crowded and loud? But here's the weirdest part about this shit. The victims? All women in their mid to late twenties, same physical type: tall, blonde and blue-eyed. No bodies. Just missing, right now."

 _Shit_ , Grayson thought. They hadn't found the researcher, which was good, but the researcher had been the trigger for something worse. Alfred hadn't been taking his meds, so he'd relapsed, more than likely, into his Alexia persona, probably thought the women were impostors, in his fucked up head. "Hey, Jill. Don't mean to cut out so quickly, but I got to take care of a few errands." He knocked back his beer, then set the empty bottle on the corner of the counter.

"I can come with you," she said.

"Alfred's going to be there."

Her expression collapsed. "Never mind. I'll see you tonight." She paused. "Oh," she said, as if she'd just remembered something. "I've been meaning to tell you, I've been packing up my stuff. I'll be ready to move it over here soon, maybe by the end of the month."

 _Two weeks, just about_. "Sounds great," he lied, and smiled. "Anyway, see you tonight." Grayson left.

Alfred hadn't taken the corvette. Either, Grayson decided, he'd been using public transportation, which was unlikely, because Alfred hated public transportation, or he had paid for a car, in cash, because that kind of method was more his style.

He drove to Larry Malone's. Larry Malone's was a small dive-bar with an upstairs, the floor black-painted concrete, the walls decorated in kitschy 1980s neon, like a drug-front from an episode of Miami Vice. The air was close and hot, from all the body-heat, and the lights. Even Sunday night was busy and loud, and made Grayson wonder if any of these kids actually had jobs or responsibilities, outside of school. A couple of people who looked too old for college were here—men and women, in their late twenties and early thirties, who probably hoped to bag a barely-legal college kid for the night. That explained how Alfred hadn't looked too out of place, Grayson decided. Weird guys were always here, picking up girls; Alfred, when he really tried, could be the most charming motherfucker on the planet, and he was handsome, cultured, and foreign, the kind of guy that most girls went for.

Grayson approached the bar, the counter patinaed in fingerprints, scratches, and random impacts. The bartender was young, like the crowd, maybe twenty-two. He was racially ambiguous, with pale green eyes, and closely shaved black hair. "Hey," said Grayson, casually. "Was supposed to meet a buddy here tonight. Tall guy, blond hair. Has an English accent, dresses real nice."

The bartender smiled with white teeth. "You just missed him," he said. "Left with a hot blond chick. Sorry, man."

"What an asshole," said Grayson amiably. "Tells me to meet him, then walks off with a girl. Real friend, huh?"

"She was good-looking, man. You know how it is." The bartender's grin widened. "You wanna drink?"

"Nope, I'm fine," said Grayson, and left.

He got into the corvette and took his cellphone from the glove compartment, shakily dialing Alfred's number. It rang for several moments. Then Alfred picked up; but he was speaking in Alexia's voice. "Grayson." Grayson heard wipers slooshing in the background, someone sobbing, Alfred's voice fuzzy from poor reception. "You shouldn't bother me right now. I'm busy."

"Alf—Alexia," he said, watching a young guy, beyond the rain-streaked windshield, stumble out of Larry Malone's, go down on his knees and hands and explosively vomit on the curb. "I know what you're doing, and you need to stop," he continued evenly. "Please. S.T.A.R.S, they're investigating the disappearances."

"Why must you always talk about Jill?" shouted Alfred-Alexia, shrilly. "You're _mine_."

"Alexia. You know I love you."

"If you did," said Alfred-Alexia, his tone ice-cold, "you wouldn't be dating that fucking Cracker Jap."

"Alexia, you need to let that girl go."

"You want her, you can find her at the Reserve. I won't abide anymore impostors." Alfred hung up.

"Fuck," he said, putting away the phone and turning the keys in the ignition. He drove toward the Arklay Reserve.

The Reserve was fucking enormous. Grayson hoped Alfred had taken the girl to the same spot; after all, Alfred was a creature of routine. He drove over the speed limit and managed not to get pulled over, making it to the Reserve in less than an hour. It was raining harder now, coming down in sheets. Grayson was pretty sure the girl was dead by now; Alfred typically didn't waste much time with murder, and sexual crime didn't interest him. His gratification came from sudden, violent death.

Arriving at the spot, Grayson found a '94 black Cadillac that definitely looked as if it had been previously owned, and Alfred dumping the woman's body into a new hole, not far from where they had buried the researcher. "Alexia," he said, getting out of the car, barely hearing himself over the roar of the rain. His clothes were instantly soaked, all the way through, his jeans clinging uncomfortably to his skin like an old band-aid. "You have to go home now!"

"I'm not going to stop until I've killed every impostor," said Alfred-Alexia. "They're trying to get you too, you know, by posing as me."

"Alfred needs his medicine, Alexia," said Grayson, reaching for Alfred. Immediately, Alfred whipped around and punched him, hard, made him fold, blood flowing freely from his nostrils. "Alexia, please," he said, his nostrils clogged, pain slowly radiating from his nose, burning. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be."

"Get up," said Alfred-Alexia. "So weak, yet you consider yourself worthy of my love?"

Grayson staggered to his feet, his knees caked with mud. He caught another jab, right under his eye, sharp pain exploding there. Alfred jabbed again, but Grayson pulled back this time, throwing a straight right cross, smashing Alfred in the cheek, noise of flesh connecting with flesh. Alfred reeled, and Grayson threw his full weight into him, tackling Alfred to the muddy ground. "Alexia," he said, pushing his knees into Alfred's solar plexus. "You're gonna get picked up, you keep killing these women. You want that? You want to go to jail?"

"Get off of me," croaked Alfred, in his own voice. "It hurts."

Grayson got off of him. Alfred gasped and sat up. "You need to get on the first plane out of here. Tomorrow," he said.

Alfred looked at the hole, his expression conveying he had no recollection of how it had gotten there. And he didn't have any recollection, Grayson knew. When he became Alexia, the things he did then were things Alexia did, not him. "What bloody happened?" asked Alfred, looking around. "Why are we out here again?"

"You killed some people," said Grayson, helping him up.

"I only killed the one," said Alfred, squinting at nothing, as if he was trying to see through the fog of his memories. "Last thing I remember was talking to some woman at a bar. We were going to go to a hotel."

"Least you weren't going to bring her back to the apartment," said Grayson.

"I like my privacy, Grayson, when it comes to certain things."

"Yeah."

"You said I needed to leave?"

"Yeah. Don't ask me why, please. Just do it."

Alfred nodded. "All right," he said.

The following morning, Grayson helped Alfred pack his bags, and then drove him to Raccoon-Warren Airport. "You keep in touch," said Grayson, in the sparkling marble and glass concourse, among a crowd of tired professionals, who, like Alfred, were waiting for their flight to Lima. "And remember to take your medicine, yeah?"

Unusually, Alfred hugged him. He wore another Paul Smith suit, gray linen with a gunmetal silk tie, and black wingtips. "I'll be certain to drop by, in the future," said Alfred, letting him go, then firmly shaking his hand, sunlight glinting brilliantly on his vintage silver Rolex. "Thank you, Grayson. I do appreciate it."

Grayson's stomach sank, settled atop his bladder. "Sounds great," he lied.

"You should really consider coming back to Rockfort, you know," said Alfred. "I can pay you better than that grimy little pub you're working at."

"I'll think about it, Alfred. Tell dad I love him, okay?"

"Scott would like it if you'd come back home too," said Alfred.

"Maybe later on. I like Raccoon City."

Alfred sighed. Dully, a woman announced that the flight to Lima was boarding. "Well, suppose I should go," said Alfred, picking up his bags. "Keep the offer in mind, won't you? Alexia is gone, there's no helping that. You can't avoid the things that remind you of her forever, Grayson."

Grayson smiled, somewhat sadly. "I know," he admitted.

Squeezing his shoulder in an awkward male gesture of comfort, Alfred said, "Take care, all right?" and left, disappearing through the boarding gate.

He took out his cellphone and dialed Jill's number, walking back to the corvette. "Hey, Jill?" he said. "I'll meet you for dinner tonight. I was thinking that Italian place."


	2. File 5 - Neptune, and Things - Part 1

**Neptune and Other Things, Like Impossible Co-Workers**

 _Spencer Estate – Raccoon City 1983_

Arklay sat directly below the Spencer mansion like some huge wasp's nest, like the nests Grayson had often found under the rocks in the yard of the Rockfort mansion while gardening with his father Scott. It was easy to get lost in Arklay too, if Alexia didn't pay attention. She was constantly noting the directions painted on the walls in flaking latex paint, and the corresponding arrows that pointed toward the places she needed to go. SPECIMEN WING spelled out on the wall in front of her, an arrow pointing right. Alexia turned that corner, stopping at the security gate at the end of the hall, where a bored middle-aged man was thumbing through a battered paperback of _The Bourne Identity_.

The guard sat behind an aluminum desk beside the automated gate, rigged to his IBM terminal by several fat rubber cables. He looked at her and cocked a bushy eyebrow. Automatically, she unclipped the ID from the lapel of her lab coat and handed it to the man, who took it between a square-tipped thumb and finger, and grunted something that might have been _thank you_.

"Alexia Ashford," she said, and watched the man's hard oblong face ride the usual gradient of confusion, as he fed her ID into the large scanner cabled to his IBM terminal. His mouth made her think of a knife-wound, and whenever he frowned, the small port-wine birthmark near his mouth contorted unpleasantly. "I'm a researcher," she added impatiently.

The man grunted again, though this time it didn't sound like anything, and sipped his coffee. "Well, isn't that something?" said the man finally, without looking at her. "Checks out," he added, plucking the ID from the scanner and passing it to her. He tapped a button on his computer; the little light on the security gate beeped, and the gate rattled open. "Go ahead through, Dr. Ashford."

There was something oddly satisfying, Alexia decided, in how unimpressed the guard was. "Thank you," she said, clipping the ID to her lapel and heading through the gate. It rattled shut behind her.

"Sure. Have a good day, Dr. Ashford," said the guard, before disappearing behind his book again.

In the Specimen Wing, Albert Wesker was waiting for her. "Oh, good. You actually came," he said, walking ahead of her. Albert was blonde and very tall, and subscribed, Alexia decided, to some characteristically Milanese or French fashion that consisted of black dress trousers and turtlenecks, and always, even indoors, a pair of Ray-Bans.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"I called very late last night. I thought you wouldn't be up for it." His face, as usual, was an immutable marble mask underneath the Ray-Bans: smooth and perfectly neutral, like the faces of Greek statues. She smelled cologne on him, something subtle and metallic. "After all, you're not obligated to assist the Arklay laboratory."

"I'm an Umbrella researcher too, Albert," she said, as they rounded a corner. "That alone obligates me."

"Ambitious, aren't you?" Albert smiled, a certain simulated quality to it, as if Albert was mimicking a smile he'd once seen in a movie. "Good," he added. "Ambition is important in Umbrella, Alexia."

They rode a lift down. When the doors opened, a distinctly nautical smell wafted up from the dim corridor beyond the lift. Like an aquarium, Alexia decided: sea-water mingling with old, damp concrete. They walked, the ground easing into a slope, the concrete here slick under her loafers. Alexia walked carefully, so she didn't slip. "Where are you taking me?" she asked, the lights becoming dimmer down here now, the air colder.

"You'll see," said Albert.

They stopped in front of a large security gate. Albert punched a code into the terminal mounted beside the gate, then waited. A loud noise, like a gameshow buzzer when a contestant answered incorrectly, and the doors opened. An enormous atrium lay beyond the gate, ringed by a catwalk. Several expansion-grate bridges connected to a central ring that looped around a steel framework support, where Alexia observed several scientists disembarking a lift.

"What the bloody hell is this place?" asked Alexia.

Several meters below the catwalk, the room was filled with water, and she saw a large shadow—several large shadows, Alexia now realized, emerging from the shadowy depths of the aquarium tank—swimming there. "Are those—?"

"Sharks." William Birkin broke away from the group of scientists Alexia had observed stepping out of the lift. He looked as if he'd just rolled out of bed with a particularly nasty hangover, in his rumpled lab coat and suit. "The Neptune project, Ashford," he added irritatedly. "I'm guessing you weren't briefed. Sloppy."

"Not now, William," said Albert, hands in the pockets of his lab coat. "I neglected to tell Alexia about the project. Too many details, and it was very late when I'd called her room."

Birkin glowered, scratching his unkempt sandy blonde hair, the ends sticking up like straw that some small restless beast had slept in. There were dark circles under his pale blue-gray eyes. "Yeah, well, buddy," he said to Albert, unscrewing the cap of a Star Wars thermos and sipping, "I didn't even want her fucking help."

Alexia ignored Birkin. She looked at Albert and said, "Project?" She was excited for an opportunity to prove herself to her colleagues. Alexia did her best not to seem too excited, however, composing her features into a look of polite neutrality. Albert had warned her to work on her poker-face, because a poker-face, he'd told her, was not only a valuable skill in Umbrella, it was a necessary survival tool.

"Yes," said Albert, and they started walking again, Birkin gangling behind them. "As you might know, Alexia," continued Albert, opening a door for her, which led into a small concrete room filled with chugging machinery and pipes, "Arklay boasts some of the company's more unconventional B.O.W research. We're ground zero, essentially, for all the experimental bullshit. We need your input on the Neptune project."

Alexia gave him an expectant look.

"Do we really have to sit here and explain all this shit to her?" asked Birkin, sipping from his Star Wars thermos again. Alexia realized now that, every time Birkin sipped, the thermos played a lightsaber noise. And now that she knew that, it was beginning to annoy her. "I mean, better to just throw the brat into things, right? Kind of like how birds—" that noise again, a soft _woosh,_ and Birkin wiped away the coffee that had dribbled down his chin—"kick babies out of the nest to get them to learn how to fucking fly."

"Birkin might actually have a point, Alexia. Better to throw you into it, I think," said Albert, looking at her. They descended a ladder, into a control room. Computers beeped softly around her, and Alexia saw it now: an enormous shark swimming past the observation glass. She shivered, remembering Jaws.

Alexia turned to Albert and watched her reflection in his sunglasses. "Fine with me," she said, trying to ignore another shark swimming past the window, bigger than the one before. "Though I am curious, Albert. Why now?" She twitched when she heard Birkin's thermos again.

"Why we're _now_ just asking for your help?" asked Albert, tilting his head and putting on his movie smile. "Simple," he continued, making a small adjustment to the cuff of his lab coat. "Convenience. You're here, Alexia, and not in Antarctica right now. It was an opportunity James Marcus wanted to take advantage of."

 _Woosh_. Alexia turned around and smacked the thermos out of Birkin's hand, who stared at her in stunned silence.

"You're fucking lucky it was basically empty," snapped Birkin, stooping to pick up the thermos, which had rolled under one of the computers. "If it spilled on something, you'd be paying for the fucking replacement—" Birkin cursed suddenly, a loud _fuck_ , because he'd smacked the back of his head on the edge of the terminal—"and explaining to Spencer why you wrecked a million-fucking-dollar piece of equipment."

"Yet again, Birkin has a point, Alexia," said Albert coolly, looking at her and frowning in apparent disappointment. "This room contains sensitive equipment." He gestured around the room, then said, "You need to be more aware of your surroundings. That's the first thing they teach you in the university labs, yes?"

Alexia blushed, feeling sheepish. Even though Albert hadn't raised his voice, or had really said anything particularly inflammatory, he had a way of making a person feel stupid and terrible with just a slight change of pitch. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"Just keep it in mind, Alexia," said Albert, patting her head. "Ah, sorry," he added, as if he'd just remembered something important. "I shouldn't be patting your head like a child, should I? We're colleagues." He started toward the ladder.

"Thank you, Albert," she said, appreciatively. "But where are you going?"

"I have other business to attend."

"You're not _seriously_ going to leave me with Ashford, Albert."

Laughing, Albert climbed up the ladder, and was gone.

"Neptune isn't even my fucking project. I'm a fucking consultant," said Birkin, though he didn't seem to be talking to her. "I was working on Hunters, and— _fuck_. Why me?"

"Yes, because I'm absolutely _ecstatic_ to be working with you," said Alexia, scowling at him. She sat down in the upholstered rolling chair and accessed the research logs on the terminal, to see where precisely she would be picking up on the project. A shark swam past the observation glass again, startling her, and she heard someone, perhaps a researcher, laugh.

Birkin placed his Star Wars thermos on the glossy concrete floor, then sat beside her and tore a reel of paper from the chunking printer, passing it to her. "Start sorting this data, Ashford," he said, and then he was lost in the bright white lattices of data on his monitor.

Alexia looked at the data and glared. Birkin was giving her the intern work.

She didn't leave Arklay until nearly midnight, and had been the last person out. She'd spent the entire shift sorting generational data (keeping track of the mutations in each generation of sharks, which were relatively short-lived due to the effects of the T-Virus, and marking anything that looked problematic in their genomes) and filing it away. Part of her was glad that she hadn't done anything with the sharks, because Alexia hated sharks, ever since Grayson had shown her Jaws. The other part of her was pissed off, because she hadn't actually done anything useful, and it had been a waste of her talent and time.

Alexia showered in the small private bathroom in her bedroom, then changed into a pair of sweatpants, and a Pink Floyd T-shirt she was sure she'd stolen from Grayson. Grayson wasn't around, and Alexia wondered if he'd been gone since that morning. He'd probably gone to hang out with Clarence, she decided, and had lost track of time. Heading into the foyer, the air eerily still, the chandelier glowing dimly, Alexia realized she hated being alone, especially in a house as enormous as the Spencer estate.

Alexia went into the dining room. Every time she came here, the candelabras were always lit, and she couldn't decide if it was some strange aesthetic habit that Spencer had, or if she always, somehow, just missed the researchers who ate their dinners in here.

Through the door on her right, Alexia entered a carpeted corridor which smelled of Cuban cigars and old men's cologne. She turned right and followed the hall to a set of stairs that went down into the kitchen. She'd always found it odd that Spencer's kitchen was in the basement. Then again, Alexia thought, George Trevor had built the place, and his architectural designs had never made much sense.

Albert was inside the kitchen, fixing himself a sandwich. He was still immaculately dressed, in his black turtleneck and dress trousers. Alexia idly wondered if he actually ever slept. "How was your day, Alexia?" he asked conversationally, very particularly arranging the lettuce on his sandwich. "Good, I hope."

"Do you always wear sunglasses?" she asked, taking the brass kettle off its hook and putting it on the stove. She turned the porcelain knob to LOW, but the burner didn't light. "Bloody thing doesn't light," she remarked, turning that knob off and trying another. This burner sputtered, but nothing happened. "Seriously?"

Albert proffered a box of matches, shaking it for emphasis. "You need to light it," he said.

Alexia took the box and made a face. A black and white caricature of a mutton-chopped Englishman doffing his derby hat on the box, the words GENTLEMAN LIGHTS stamped beneath the mutton-chopped man in stylized vaudeville font, right above MADE IN CHICAGO. "How cute," she remarked dryly, shaking her head. She scraped a match against the striker and lit the burner. "Thank you, Albert," she added, and passed the box back to him.

She watched him toss the matchbox into a drawer. "So a good day?" he asked.

"Birkin made me sort generational data," she said, fishing the tin of teabags from the cabinet. The porcelain tiling on the wall was old, pieces of it cracked, or missing entirely, exposing the rough plaster underneath.

"Of course he did." Albert shook his head, then sipped a glass of milk. "Birkin has quite the stick up his ass about you."

"Really? I hadn't noticed," said Alexia flatly.

"Unfortunately, Birkin is as sore a loser as he is intelligent, Alexia."

"He didn't even _lose_ anything," she argued, dropping the teabag into her mug. "I was hired."

"Yes, well, in his head, it's all some competition," said Albert, leaning back against the table in the center of the kitchen, where several cutting boards, plates, and pots had been neatly stacked.

"The Neptune project," she said, pushing past the topic of William Birkin. "What is the bloody point?"

"Weapons. What else?" said Albert, shrugging. "Cost-effective alternatives for naval warfare. The military commissioned the program. Some crack idea from a suit in the Department of Defense, as I understand it." Albert paused, smoothly draining his milk. Then, "But, well, they're paying for it."

"Birkin mentioned something about Hunters?"

"That 'other' business I'd mentioned, down in the aqua ring," said Albert. "Reptilian DNA, introduced to a human embryos infected with the T-Virus."

"Embryos?" she said, surprised.

"Highly unethical, I know." Albert smiled coldly.

Alexia shrugged. The kettle started to whistle. "Ethics limit progress," she said simply, grabbing a hand-towel to protect her hand from the kettle's hot handle. Carefully, she poured the boiling water into her mug and let the tea steep.

"You sing an entirely different tune, when it comes to that butler of yours."

"Grayson matters to me," she said, putting the kettle aside. "Those embryos don't."

"You really will do well in this company, Alexia."

Alexia took the milk from the refrigerator and added it to her tea, until it turned light brown, then stirred four teaspoons of sugar into it. "I know I will," she said, sipping. For some reason, the tea didn't taste as good as it did whenever Grayson made it; though it was certainly passable. "Have you seen Grayson anywhere, Albert?"

"I have, actually." Albert removed his sunglasses and wiped the lenses with his shirt. His eyes were so pale and cold, they made Alexia think of stars. "He's in the residence, out back of the mansion." The sunglasses went back on, and Albert smiled. "I saw him playing pool with the keeper. Jimmy, I think his name is? New hire, you see."

Alexia nodded and finished her tea. "Thank you, Albert."

"No trouble." Albert paused, cocking an eyebrow over the rim of his glasses. "That Pink Floyd shirt is too big on you."

The dormitory, informally known as The Residence, sat directly above the aqua ring, and housed the Neptune project's senior researchers. It also boasted, Alexia had learned from one of the junior researchers, a recreational room and bar, and was a popular gathering place for on-site staff just coming off their shifts.

Moths fluttered around the porch-lamp, their shadows strobing on the worn clapboard of the house. She heard rock music beyond the door, and went inside. A short, dimly lit hallway. There were several doors here with brass room numbers, and a pair of doors at the end of the hall, where the music, which Alexia now recognized as _Psycho Killer_ by the Talking Heads, was coming from.

Alexia went through the double doors. The first thing she was greeted by was a fading poster of a smiling half-naked woman sloppily tacked to the wall by curling strips of masking tape. A thin crowd of researchers were gathered around the tables on the bottom floor, or drinking at the bar on peeling upholstered stools, chain-smoking non-filtered cigarettes, their figures diffused by a haze of blue cigarette smoke, and the smoky glow of neon advertisements. The music, Alexia realized, was coming from a jukebox in the corner of the bar, which was now jangling out _She Blinded Me With Science_.

She found Grayson on the second floor, dressed in pegged stonewashed jeans and a sleeveless Alice Cooper shirt, and he was playing pool with a young Italian guy in dirty white Umbrella coveralls, unzipped to the navel. The pool-table was old: parts of the felt had been crudely patched with dull lengths of duct tape, and the wood was patinaed with chips, scratches, and cigarette burns. Alexia didn't say anything right away, because Grayson seemed to be concentrating on his shot. She watched him shoot, and sink the eight ball.

Grayson laughed, said, "Pay up, Jimmy," and held his hand out to the man in the coveralls. Jimmy grumbled and begrudgingly slapped a crumpled twenty into Grayson's palm, who made it vanish into the pocket of his jeans.

"You're a fucking cheater, man. Just like that scumbag Steve," said Jimmy.

"Not my fault you suck at this game, man," said Grayson, winking. He grinned, spinning the pool cue between his fingers. He looked at her and said, "Hey, Alexia. Didn't see you there."

Jimmy looked at her and said, "You're Ashford, huh? Heard 'bout you from my buddy Alias, down in Security."

"Does everyone know who I am?"

"You're a thirteen-year-old scientist. So yeah, people know who you are," said Jimmy. "And for the record, I don't really give a shit, and neither do most people." He shouldered past Grayson, muttered something about a drink, then disappeared downstairs.

"He was angry," said Alexia.

"I beat him six times," said Grayson, beaming. "Assholes never learn, Alexia. And now I'm 120 bucks richer." He put his cue back on the rack, then asked, "How'd work go?"

"I did paperwork."

"Yeah, heard Birkin talking about it," said Grayson. "He was here. Think he still is. Went to the bathroom, I think."

"What did he say?"

"Said he gave you the secretarial shit."

Alexia frowned. "Anything else?"

"Nope. Funny thing, I think me hanging around is making shit tense. Researchers have been pretty quiet. Something about an NDA." Grayson glanced up at a Pabst advertisement, crescents of blue neon catching in his eyes. He frowned, leaning sideways on the pool-table. "They tried telling me to go, but Dr. Wesker told them it was fine, I could hang out." Looking at her now, Grayson shrugged. "Birkin's too drunk to really care that I'm here."

"I'm surprised Albert said it was okay."

"He was kinda hesitant at first, but when I told him I'd just shoot some pool, he said okay, long as I didn't bug anyone." Grayson grinned with white teeth. "Your name carries a lot of weight with the nerds, Alexia."

"You've been bloody _name-dropping_ me?"

"Hey, I get treated pretty good 'cause I name-drop you." Grayson laughed, pushing away from the pool-table. "What time is it?"

"Probably close to one in the morning, by now," she replied.

"Damn." Grayson scratched his head. His hair was always an unruly mess of loose, dark curls. Even on the rare occasions he put the effort into combing it, his hair never seemed to stay that way, as if it had a life of its own, and its own opinions of what looked good. "Completely lost track of time, hustling Jimmy for cash." He paused, staring at her, as if he'd suddenly realized something. Then, "Hey. That's my fucking Pink Floyd shirt."

She heard Birkin, down by the bar. "Can you believe Marcus has me working with Ashford?" he was saying to someone, or perhaps saying to the entire bar, a certain drunk hysteria tinging his voice. Alexia went to the railing and saw Birkin sitting at the bar, drinking. "Ashford, of all fucking people. You know what her family's known for? Dying. Her granddad was the first fucking white guy to die from the proge—"

"Bill, shut the fuck up," a researcher said to him, a tall black man with closely shaved hair, and horn-rimmed glasses. He wore a pale gray and pink suit. "That kid's here. You remember the fucking NDA we signed?"

"Yeah," said Birkin, and he sipped his beer.

The man stood and patted Birkin on the shoulder, then grabbed his windbreaker from the nearby coat-rack. "I'm out. But word of advice, my dude?" He pointed at Birkin with a catcher's mitt-sized hand, the palm very pink. "You need to calm the fuck down. Ashford, she's just a damn kid, and you're a grown fucking man."

"Annette says the same thing. The 'calm the fuck down' part, I mean."

"Listen to your girlfriend, man." The man glanced at his wristwatch, then said, "Anyway, I got to catch the Ecliptic. I'm not one of you on-siters. Got a home and family to be getting back to." He started to leave, then said to Jimmy, who was chunking another quarter into the jukebox, "I'll see you, Scott, and Alias for our usual poker night."

"Asshole always cheats," said Jimmy to Birkin, once the man was gone. "Scumbag."

"Doubt it," said Birkin, drinking. "Steve's a good guy."

"Yeah, sure." Jimmy shook his head, finishing his beer. Then, "I'm out too, Birkin. I got dogs to feed." He left.

Eventually, it was only Birkin, _Born Under Punches_ playing on the jukebox to an empty bar. Alexia was going to leave—she was tired, and had to be down in Arklay in the morning—but Birkin saw her, honed in on her like a starving predator who'd finally found food. He said, "The hell are you doing here, Ashford?" and put his beer down, a mostly empty bottle of Heineken. "You're a fucking kid." Birkin paused, seeing Grayson. "Oh. Yeah, forgot he was here."

"Birkin, I'm really not feeling it tonight," said Grayson, sitting on the edge of a table and folding his arms. Green neon, from a Budweiser advertisement, stained his lips; a bit of red from Old Milwaukee touched the curve of his cheek; gold, from a Coors sign, flowered in his eye. "I might just break your fucking jaw, you keep it up."

"I just want to drink," said Birkin, without looking at Grayson. He hunched his high narrow shoulders, thin arms on the bar. Alexia almost felt bad for Birkin, seeing him like that. "You shouldn't even be in here," he said to Grayson.

"Yeah, you said that already," said Grayson.

"Grayson, let's go," said Alexia, holding her hand out to him.

Grayson looked at her, a little uncertainly, and took her hand. "Sure," he said finally, and he slid off the table, letting her pull him away.

"You're not as great as you think you are, Ashford," said Birkin suddenly, his back still turned toward them, drunk desperation in his voice. "You're just a spoiled fucking brat. Just a spoiled fucking brat who got the lucky numbers in the genetic lottery."

 _If you knew anything about my genetics,_ she thought, _maybe you wouldn't be such an arsehole_. Alexia looked at Grayson and shook her head. "Forget him," she said, and they started walking. "Not worth it."

"Just a snobby fucking rich kid, Ashford," she heard Birkin say, the desperation in his voice mounting. Then his voice was lost behind the door, and they were walking outside, into light summer rain.

"I fucking hate that guy," said Grayson, as they walked down the path toward the mansion. The path meandered through the woods, and if Grayson hadn't been there, the darkness and the quiet of it would have scared her. "Why does he care so goddamn much about this stupid rivalry shit?" He looked searchingly at her. "Why is it such a big fucking deal?"

"Narcissism?" she suggested, shrugging, twigs crunching under her shoes. She was comfortable in the T-shirt and sweatpants, but now it was raining, cooler out, and she was beginning to regret not changing into warmer clothes.

Grayson must have noticed she was cold, because he put his arm around her, pulling her close. "Maybe," he said, his other hand in the pocket of his jeans, where he'd stashed Jimmy's twenty. "I just don't get his deal. Guy's what? Twenty-one? At twenty-one, my dad was fresh out of Vietnam."

Alexia huddled closer to him, smiling. "Times are a little different now, Grayson," she said. "Besides, Birkin's an intellectual, and intellectuals are rarely well-adjusted." She chuckled, dipping her head. "I would know."

"Yeah, you are a little awkward," he said, grinning. "But I like that about you."

"Is that why you're dating me?" she joked. "My awkwardness?"

"Duh," he said, laughing. Grayson leaned over and kissed her head. "You're also not too bad-looking," he teased.

Alexia was still smiling, though slowly, gradually, felt sadness creeping in. She would miss moments like these, and wondered if she'd even be able to dream about them in cryostasis. Would she just sit there, inert, for fifteen years, seeing and feeling nothing? Or would she, at least, have the comfort of her memories, in that cold place? Alexia now understood how terminally ill people must feel, knowing they only had so much time left. Though she'd taken every precaution, there was always some small chance she wouldn't survive cryostasis, because technology was not infallible; and that made the terminal feeling so much harder, so much worse.

"Hey, you okay?" came Grayson's voice, through the subliminal hum of her thoughts.

"I'm fine," she lied, managing to sound passably honest.

"Birkin bugs you that much, huh?"

"Yes," she lied again. "I suppose."

"Well, don't let him get to you."

Alexia nodded. "Where'd you go earlier?" she asked, shifting the subject.

"Hung out with Clancy and his girl," said Grayson, beaming. "You missed out. Went to this water-park. It was pretty great."

"He's still dating Natalie?"

"After that shit at Whitley Lake? Nope." Grayson chuckled. "Some other girl now. Renee Warren. Her grandfather's Michael Warren Sr., the current mayor of Raccoon City, and her dad's some hot-shot lawyer, out in Ashbury."

"Becoming a socialite, Grayson?" she teased, smirking. "Hanging around with the mayor's granddaughter."

"I've always been a socialite," he teased right back. "My best friends are English nobles." He pantomimed fixing a bowtie, putting on a smug look. "I'm fucking fancy."

Alexia giggled. "Well, not very fancy in those trousers, and in that Alice Cooper shirt."

"Says the girl in sweatpants, and the Pink Floyd shirt she _stole_ from me."

"And such a comfortable shirt it is, too," she said, grinning.

Back in the room, Alexia removed her shoes and stretched out on the bed, quite ready to fall asleep. Grayson climbed into the bed beside her, reaching over her and turning off the brass lamp on the end-table. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Ambient light, from the bay window, sketched out the shapes of the furniture. Rain gently pattered on the glass, and Alexia could feel sleep trickling behind her eyes like the sand in an hourglass. She curled up against Grayson and locked her hands across the small of his back, her head on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of it, hearing his soft, steady heartbeat in her ear.

Grayson gently played with her hair. "You working tomorrow?" He paused. "Today, I mean, since it's after midnight."

Alexia's chest tightened. "Yes," she said, burying her nose in his shirt. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he said, though his tone conveyed that no, it wasn't okay.

"I'm sorry, Grayson."

"You've got responsibilities. I get it," he said, and kissed her. "I'll just bug Clancy, after he gets off work." Grayson sighed, his chest rising dramatically underneath her head, then falling. "Good thing it's summer, so he's not in school. Otherwise, pretty sure the only company I'd have around here is Dr. Wesker. He doesn't talk much, and when he does talk, it's nothing I follow. Well, except he likes Knight Rider, so we got that much in common."

"I really do want to spend time with you," she said, and meant it.

"So tell those guys you can't work."

"It isn't that easy," she said, and yawned, closing her eyes.

"You sleep," he said to her, combing his fingers through her hair.

Alexia slept without dreaming.

After her usual morning routine, and some breakfast, Alexia went down to Arklay. Birkin was already there, and after last night, she now understood why he always looked as if he was nursing a bad hangover. He was slumped over his desk, chin tucked in his arms, watching algorithms cycling on his computer monitor. Alexia, not really sure what she was supposed to be doing today, sat down in the seat beside him. "Am I going to be wasting my time on grunt-work again?" she asked, booting up her computer.

Birkin straightened in his chair, turned, grabbed a case of floppy disks and set them down in front of her. "You," he said, "are you going to transcribe the generational data to these discs, Ashford." He smiled without warmth, opened the filing cabinet, took out all the print-outs she'd spent the night filing away, and plopped them on the desk. "Now get to fucking work."

She stared at the box of floppies, the print-outs, then stared at him. "I'm a fucking chief researcher," she said, a sudden urge to punch Birkin in the jaw swelling in her chest, and something with Grayson's voice telling her to do it. " _Not_ a bloody intern."

"You're in _my_ lab now, so you're going to do whatever the fuck I tell you to do," said Birkin, turning away from her and slotting a floppy into his computer. "Now shut the fuck up and do what you're told, Ashford." He sipped black coffee from a Raiders of the Lost Ark mug, and didn't say anything else.

"Is this what James Marcus wanted me for?" she asked, furiously opening the case and jamming the first floppy into the drive, then banging the drive-latch shut. The stack of print-outs was practically a tome without a cover, and Birkin had ruined the meticulous order she'd arranged the pages in when he had taken them from the filing cabinet; it would take Alexia all day to fix it. "To do all the fucking drudgery, because his 'protege' can't be fucking fagged to do it himself?" She started organizing the pages, shaking with rage.

"Neptune isn't even _my_ project!" shouted Birkin suddenly, and a few of the other researchers in the control room were looking at him, in bewildered silence. "I got stuck here, because Albert couldn't be goddamn _bothered_!" He slammed his fists on the desk, then paused, exhaling. Birkin seemed to deflate in his chair. "Now he's working on my Hunters," he said, his tone gradually smoothing into something close to conversational. "And me? I'm watching a fucking fish-bowl while babysitting Edward Ashford's snotty granddaughter." Birkin looked at her, his eyes like dull steel buttons, the skin underneath them unhealthy-looking and pale. He was only twenty-one, but right now, Birkin looked so much older. "I rather watch an ape scratch its ass and eat its own shit, to be perfectly fucking frank, Ashford." He loosed his tie, then continued evenly, "I rather watch the fucking college kids down at Larry Malone's throw up their entire fucking round of Alabama slammers on the hood of some asshole's car, Ashford, than sit here with you."

"You're entirely too fixated on your irrational dislike of me," she said coolly, finishing with the papers. She still hadn't entirely organized the print-outs, but it was at least better than before, more manageable. Alexia glanced at the first page of data, then tapped out the information on her keyboard. Even though it was drudgery, Alexia understood that it was still work, and that it had to be done. "Have you considered therapy, Birkin?"

"Fuck off," he said to her, before returning to his computer work.


	3. File 5 - Neptune, and Things - Part 2

Alexia had a routine at the end of every shift: she circuited the room and turned off all the electronic equipment, made sure her work-space was clean, then checked the pressure gauges and tested the pressure shelter—large sheets of reinforced corrugated steel that shuttered the windows, in the event of a pressure differential—to ensure it was functioning properly. Once she'd finished, Alexia left, locking the control room behind her with the key Birkin had given her.

The expansion-grate catwalk vibrated with her weight as she edged toward the gate to the atrium. This, Alexia had decided on her first day, was the worst part about the aqua ring. The water wasn't level with the catwalk, but it was high enough that Alexia didn't get too close to the railing. And always, those thoughts about what would happen if the catwalk suddenly collapsed, sent her plummeting into the tank...

Back in her room, Alexia took the phone off its cradle and punched the HR number. She gave her name and employee ID to the female operator on the other end, and waited to be transferred over to Antarctica.

"I was wondering when you were going to bloody call again," said Alfred, coming in on an extension. "Scott and I have been worried sick, Alexia. How's Raccoon City?"

"I wouldn't know. I've practically been imprisoned in the Spencer estate," she said. "How's Scott, brother?"

"Worried, like I said," said Alfred. "He's napping, I think."

"Don't wake him on my account," she said, before Alfred could suggest it. "The poor man works too hard. Let him rest." Alexia glanced at the antique numeral clock on the wall, which gave the time as 1:15 AM. "It's been absolutely dreadful, Alfred," she confided. "I never get to see Grayson, and I've been stuck doing all the bloody grunt-work. First, Birkin had me sorting through papers. Today, he had me transcribing all that data to floppies."

"Knuckledragger, that Birkin fellow," remarked Alfred, and she heard him click his tongue.

She stared at the laminated sheet of extensions, taped to the desk beside the plastic phone-cradle. "I suppose that's why I'm calling you," she said. "I just... I don't know. Wanted someone to talk to about it."

"Grayson being emotionally negligent? I'll kick his bloody ass."

"'Emotionally negligent'? No, not at all," said Alexia, and shook her head, twirling the rubber phone-cord around her finger. She leaned back in her chair. "You treat conversation seriously. Grayson? Well, you know how Grayson is, Alfred. I don't need to tell you."

"You know, I have this theory," began Alfred, with a philosophical air. "I think your attraction to Grayson belies some psychological condition where his prosaicness arouses you, dear sister. Like some esoteric erotic variant of the superiority complex, perhaps."

"I think," said Alexia, smiling, "you pulled that out of your ass, dear brother."

"Every theory starts out, and often persists, as an ass-pull, Alexia."

"Point, I suppose."

Then Alfred said, in a bored psychologist's voice, "You're like an organ-grinder, perhaps, who harbors zoophilic feelings for their monkey. A certain perverse thrill, watching the little beast dance its idiot routine, dear sister..."

"Would you stop?" she said, giggling.

"Fine, fine." Alexia could hear the smile in Alfred's voice. "How _is_ Grayson anyway?"

It occurred to her, then, that she didn't really know. "I've been busy with work," she explained, trailing a finger along the straight, thin line of her eyebrow. "We don't talk much. He does his thing, and I do mine." Alexia frowned and leaned forward, arms folded on the desk, the phone cradled between her shoulder and jaw. "I think he's all right. Seems fine, the few times we've actually found time to talk."

"You're sure he's not gallivanting around with some other girl?" asked Alfred, and Alexia was a little taken aback by his bluntness. She'd forgotten how straight-to-the-point her brother could be.

"Alfred, he's not cheating on me," she said. Though some small part of her, probably the insecure teenager, wondered if, maybe, Grayson was. He'd mentioned Renee Warren, and perhaps it wasn't Clancy she was seeing. Maybe, Alexia thought, Grayson sensed that she would go away soon, into cryostasis, and he was preparing to move on. "There's no bloody way he'd do that to me, Alfred," she said defiantly.

"Well, perhaps," said Alfred, with an air of skepticism. "He practically worships the ground you walk on. Still, dear sister, it's something to think about. He's a teenage boy, a being comprised almost exclusively of raging hormones."

 _They aren't raging_ , she argued to Alfred, in her head. _He sleeps in the bed with me, and he's never done anything weird_. Except that one time, but she'd let Grayson touch her; though Alexia didn't tell Alfred that, because there were some things you just didn't tell your brother—your technically older brother. "You like giving me things to worry about, don't you?" she said, and frowned, glowering at nothing.

"If you trust him, why would you worry?" said Alfred. "Of course," he continued, "if he does anything to betray you, I'll kill him myself. My friend or not, nobody hurts you, Alexia. I won't allow it."

Alexia would have liked to tell herself that Alfred was being overdramatic, but knew, with clenched certainty, that Alfred really would kill Grayson, if Grayson hurt her. Something had changed in her brother, after Alexander's death; and sometimes, the change scared her. "I don't think it will come to that, Alfred," she said evenly. "I'm just being silly. This business with Birkin is fraying my nerves, I suppose."

"Don't let Birkin get to you, sister," said Alfred encouragingly. "You're better than he is."

"Thank you, Alfred," she said, smiling. Then, "Anyway, I really should go. Work in the morning, and I need sleep."

"Say no more. Rest well, Alexia. I'll give you a ring later." Alfred hung up, the dial-tone droning in her ear.

Alexia stared at the humming receiver and said, "Doesn't take much to get you off the phone, does it, Alfred?" She shook her head and put the handset back on the cradle, then went to her bed and slept.

Later that morning, Birkin waylaid her as soon as she stepped into the aqua ring. "Do you have the fucking control room key?" he asked, and he looked somewhat better today, more rested; though the skin underneath his eyes was still unhealthy-looking and pale. "You were the last fucking one out of the lab last night, Ashford."

She'd completely forgotten about the key. "Shit," she said aloud, rifling through her pockets, finding the key in the pocket of her black cardigan. She sighed with relief. "Here," she said, holding it out to him.

Birkin snatched it out of her hand and inspected it, as if he'd suspected it was fake. "You're also late," he added. "Thirty fucking minutes late." He turned around and shoved the key into the lock on the door, turning it with a loud _chunk_. He swung the door open, into cool aquarium darkness. A few of the researchers exchanged tired looks. "You've been holding us all up."

"I am _not_ late," she snapped, glancing at the ivory clockface of her vintage Rolex. She watched Birkin grope around in the darkness for the switch, and turn the lights on. "I'm thirty minutes _early_ , Birkin."

"Yeah, well, I decided to open up the lab a little earlier," he said, and she heard him mutter something about getting a lanyard for the key.

"You don't just decide to change the fucking schedule, Birkin," she said. "Especially when you have no authori—"

Birkin whipped around and said, "This is my fucking project now. So you'll do whatever the fuck I want you to do, _including_ —" he tapped the digital clockface on his cheap little Casio—"being on time. You got me, Eliza Doolittle?"

"You didn't even tell me you—"

"I called your room earlier," he barked, starting down the ladder. "Not my fault you don't pick up, Ashford."

"I was sleeping, and didn't expect—"

"Just shut up and get to work," he said, and sat down at his work station.

Alexia sat down at her computer, staring blankly at the inert monitor, her ears and face burning. There was an uncomfortable feeling in her chest, as though someone was slowly cranking a vise tighter around her heart. She felt stupid, letting Birkin get under her skin like that; but his verbal attrition was beginning to whittle her down, and even though Alexia hated to admit it, she was still young, easy to hurt. She tried to focus on something else, booting up her computer and slotting the floppy containing the generational data-work.

"No, you're not working on that today," said Birkin, moving her hand away from the keyboard.

"Then what the fuck do you _want_ me to do?" said Alexia, looking at him.

"Marcus wants you to make some tweaks to the T-Virus strain in the sharks," said Birkin, glancing at the window, watching a shark swim past. Now Alexia understood why Birkin was in a seemingly fouler mood than usual: Dr. Marcus had personally asked that she make a vital contribution to the Neptune project.

That made her feel astronomically better, and Alexia beamed. "Really?" she said, and stopped, remembering what Albert had said about working on her poker-face. She composed her features into a mask of vacant boredom. "Well, where's the data?" she asked. "I need numbers to work with."

Birkin took a plastic case from the top of an electrical switchboard, which regulated the pressure gauges, and set it down in front of her. "Here's all the fucking data we've compiled on the Neptune project."

Alexia opened the case and carefully picked through the floppies, each marked with hasty handwritten labels in black felt-pen. "Thank you, Birkin," she said, slotting a disk labeled NEPTUNE PROJECT and snapping the drive-latch shut. "I'll get started."

Not long after lunch, Birkin said to her, "Come on," and left without waiting for her.

Alexia had been in the middle of editing logarithms, and his abruptness surprised her. "What?" she said, jogging to catch up. "Come on where?" she asked, watching him.

"Delivery," he said, staring straight ahead. "New female for the tank. Hopefully Boudica doesn't kill her."

Boudica was what the research team had named the female shark, the largest in the tank. Alexia had once observed the feeders, Spanish and Eastern Europeans who spoke no English, feed several seals to Boudica. Boudica had torn the flippers off first, like a child playing with their food, then she'd finished the seals off in two monstrous bites. It had taken hours for the filtration system to clean the blood from the water. She nodded and said, "New stock to facilitate diversity in the gene-pool."

"Oh, wow. Thanks, Captain Obvious," said Birkin, shaking his head.

"Can you _not_ be an asshole?" she asked.

"Not in my fabric," said Birkin, smiling unapologetically. "Your pedigree doesn't do shit for you down here, Ashford. At least, doesn't do shit for you when I'm here." He glanced at his Casio, the digital clockface mounted to a strap of cheap ribbed steel. "The others?" Birkin looked at her. "They might enjoy kissing your family's pale white asses. But me? Not so much."

Alexia felt that vise-like feeling in her chest again, and she started, gently, to shake.

Birkin must have noticed. He said, "Gonna cry, Ashford?" and laughed.

"Fuck you," she said automatically, her cheeks hot.

"See? You got a thin fucking skin, Ashford," said Birkin, loosing his paisley tie, then rolling up the sleeves of his baggy lab coat. "You're so used to having your ass wiped that you don't know how to handle someone who puts the toilet paper down."

"That isn't—" she would have said that wasn't true, but she knew, deep down, that it was—"You're full of shit, Birkin."

"Sure it is," he said, staring at her, his eyes like dull beads of metal. "It's true, and you know it's true."

Alexia didn't say anything. She slipped suddenly, went sideways, and nearly went over the railing. But Birkin caught her around the wrist, said, "Kid, would you fucking watch it?" and pulled her back onto the safety of the expansion-grate catwalk.

Her heart was pounding in her chest. She heard one of the sharks, perhaps Boudica, sloshing around in the water below. "You saved me," she said, in disbelief. Alexia had almost been certain Birkin would have let her fall into the water; she thought about the seals, then, how Boudica had torn them apart, and shivered.

"I'm looking out for my own sweet ass," he said to her, letting go of her wrist. "Marcus wants you around, for whatever reason, and so does Old Man Spencer. If something happened to you, I'd be out of a fucking job, and maybe worse." Birkin turned away and started walking.

Alexia followed, watching the space between his shoulders. "Right," she said. "Self-preservation."

"Damn fucking right," he said.

They were approached by a man in dark coveralls, and he was holding a clipboard. "Brought the female. Just need your signature, Dr. Birkin," said the man, holding out the clipboard to Birkin, who plucked a disposable pen from his pocket, from a selection of other disposable pens, and signed the paper. "Thank you," said the man in coveralls, and he went away.

A gate opened, and a large great white came through from the auxiliary tank, where the researchers raised genetically modified seals for the sharks' food, and into the treatment pen. The pen, partitioned off from the main and auxiliary tanks by thick steel gates, was where the sharks received their T-shots, and where the researchers implanted subcutaneous chips that would allow them to collect raw data (generational data to mitigate in-breeding, T-mutations in the shark's genome) for study.

Alexia watched a researcher in a wet-suit jab the shark, which sat a meter or so below them in the pen, with a long spear, a syringe screwed to the end of it. It took a few minutes, but the shark gradually slowed, then went inert. The researcher—Alexia was sure his name was Martin Crackhorn—climbed down the rungs of the ladder, and into the water with the shark, peeling anti-static waterproofed plastic from a gray slab of silicon roughly the size of her hand. She watched Crackhorn make an incision near the shark's fin, then carefully insert the chip into the cut.

A second researcher in a wet-suit—Alexia didn't know this person—climbed down into the water and administered a shot. "T-Virus," Birkin explained to her, watching the whole thing with calm detachment. "It's a pretty weak strain. We amp the dosages, space them out. Too much at one time, the shark fucking mutates and starts to decompose."

Alexia nodded. "You want to acquaint the host with the virus, acclimate their bodies," she said, hands in the pockets of her lab coat. "Same methodology with vaccines, essentially. Introduce diluted microbes to help the host build an immunity." She paused, looking at Birkin now. "Why am I here? Watching this, I mean. I should be working on those numbers."

Birkin shrugged. "Marcus asked me to drag you along."

"I see," she said, wondering what James Marcus really wanted.

She'd made headway with the math, and had corrected several errors that had to have been made by an amateur, wondering how nobody had actually caught them until now. She had even left the lab on time, with enough time to spare that she could go to Raccoon City with Grayson, if she wanted to. And Alexia did want to.

 _You're sure he's not gallivanting around with some other girl?_ something with Alfred's voice said. Alexia frowned, beginning to wonder now what Renee Warren looked like. She'd been so preoccupied by her work in the aqua ring that Alexia hadn't thought about her conversation with Alfred, about Renee, and now, now it was all bubbling up, every little anxious, stupid fear. Was she blond like her? Did she have the same blue eyes? Grayson seemed to like blonds, or perhaps it had only seemed that way to Alexia, because she'd been the only girl he'd had frequent contact with.

Grayson wasn't in her room. Alexia wondered where he'd been, these last few days. Or maybe he'd been around, but she'd been so busy with work that it had seemed as though he hadn't. "Game Palace," she said aloud, the lurid pink neon of its sign suddenly blaring in her skull. "I bet he's at bloody Game Palace."

She boarded the Ecliptic Express. The train was an old steam engine that used to run loggers between work-sites, about seventy years ago. The interior of each car resembled an elongated Victorian smoking room, dimly lit by incandescent crystal chandeliers, the floors oiled hardwood, and carpeted in a thin layer of imitation Persian rugs. Alexia made her way down the narrow aisles of overlarge leather-upholstered chairs, a perfume of cigarettes and cognac permeating the air. Rain splashed against the windows, the Arklay forest vanishing behind a steadily growing curtain of blue-silver. A sparse crowd of researchers occupied the car, either reading newspapers or magazines, or listening to music on their Walkmans.

Alexia took a seat. She fished a worn paperback copy of CARL JUNG: COLLECTED WORKS from her sling bag; Grayson had bought the book for her twelfth birthday, but she'd never really gotten around to reading it until now. She put on her headphones too, Joy Division singing _Passover_ in her ears.

Someone sat across from her, and she was sure they said something to her. Alexia took off her headphones and looked up, into Albert's expressionless mask, watching her reflection in his sunglasses. "You know, it's raining," she said.

Albert smiled. "I like my sunglasses." He looked at her book, cocking an eyebrow. "Carl Jung? Didn't take you for the sort, Alexia."

"It's interesting." Alexia paused, squinting. "Wait," she said. "Don't you live at the mansion, Albert?"

"I do, but I don't spend every waking moment there," he said, still smiling. "It's Friday," he continued. "I always have dinner at this little Italian place, in Raccoon." Albert stopped, seemingly considering something. He wore a nice black suit today, and his cologne was fragrantly woody, dark. "How would you like to join me, Alexia?" he asked suddenly, tilting his head. "As colleagues," he added. "Nothing strange, I assure you."

"I'm actually going to meet with Grayson," she said.

Albert nodded. "Understandable," he said. Then, "I hear Birkin's been giving you a hard time."

"That's an understatement," said Alexia, shaking her head. The train softly rattled around her, the trees beyond the window blurring into rainy abstracts. "He's positively abusive."

"Don't let it get to you," said Albert, brushing something from his lapel. "Birkin wants you to fuck up, and this is his way of making that happen." He looked at her now, his pale face unreadable beneath the Ray-Bans. "So don't give him the satisfaction."

"Do you have any idea what James Marcus wants with me, Albert?" she asked. "Birkin made it seem like Marcus wants something big. I slipped in the aqua ring earlier today, nearly over the railing, and Birkin caught me. Said it was only because of Marcus and Spencer."

Albert shrugged. "I couldn't say," he said, still watching her. "Marcus doesn't really talk to anyone."

Alexia nodded. "Right. Hermit."

"Anchorite, more like," said Albert, shifting in his chair, the leather creaking softly with the movement. "He treats his research with a certain religious ferocity, like he's got the Ark of the Covenant in the lab with him." The train gradually came to a stop, then Albert said, "Well, this is our stop."

Alexia put CARL JUNG: COLLECTED WORKS into her sling bag, trailing Albert onto the train platform. "I've a question, Albert," she said, riding in Albert's slipstream, researchers in suits flowing around them like a silent current, in the cold glow of the fluorescents.

"I may have an answer, depending," he said, looking at her, light flowing across his sunglasses. He stood in stark black contrast to the glow of the fluorescents, and the neutrals of the cement floor and walls worn smooth by pedestrian traffic, like he was something cut from the matte material of a black hole.

"Do you ever find time for your personal life?" she asked carefully, staring at him.

"Do you want the honest answer, Alexia, or the answer you want to hear?"

Alexia frowned.

"No," he said, without waiting for her reply. "I don't."

She cabbed to Game Palace and paid the driver, plus a tip, stepping out of the car, and into the pink neon of the arcade's glass tube sign. Several teenagers stared blankly at screens of bright pixels beyond the large windows, feeding steady streams of quarters into the coin-slots. Alexia stepped into the electronic thunder of the arcade, and heard an approximated explosion somewhere, some kid shouting that the game was bullshit, it cheated, and the jangling of game music.

Alexia found Grayson playing Stargate. "Grayson," she said, and squeezed through a group of teenagers gathered around a nearby Pac-Man machine. "Knew I'd bloody find you here."

Grayson beamed. "Hey, Alexia," he said, abandoning the controls, some other kid sliding right into his place so his quarter wouldn't go to waste. Grayson didn't seem to care. "You got off work early tonight! That's awesome."

"Where's Clarence?"

Grayson shrugged. "Renee and him took off," he said, and they started walking toward the doors. "I was pretty much done here anyway. Unless you wanna stay, play a few rounds of something?"

Alexia shook her head. "It's too loud in here," she said. "And too crowded."

It was still raining outside, but Alexia had brought an umbrella. She opened it, and Grayson huddled underneath it with her. "Friday night crowds," he said, grinning. She smelled Taylor of Old Bond Street on his clothes, and supposed he'd nicked it from Scott before they had flown to Raccoon. "Place gets fucking packed." Grayson looked at her, as though seeing her for the first time. "You eat anything?" he asked.

"No," she admitted, passing the watery neon of shops and bars, the colors glittering in wet colorful pools on the pavement. "Albert asked if I'd like to join him for dinner, but I declined. I wanted to find you."

"Albert asked you out?" said Grayson, raising his eyebrow. "Dude's like twenty-three. Fucking gross."

"He wasn't asking me on a date," she said, rolling her eyes. "A friendly dinner, as colleagues."

"But don't you think that's fucking weird, some old dude asking you out to dinner? You're a kid, Alexia." Grayson shook his head, making a face. "I mean, what if Wesker's secretly a pedophile, or whatever? Grooming, I think it's called. They pick little girls they wanna diddle, then start grooming them to think it's okay. I think it was Nabokov who talked about it."

"Albert doesn't want to _diddle_ —" Alexia tried to keep a straight face, but a spluttery laugh escaped her, and she couldn't stop laughing—"He doesn't want to do anything weird, Grayson. You're being absolutely ridiculous."

"I'm just saying it's fucking weird."

Alexia held his hand and smiled. "It's cute how concerned you are for me," she said, and kissed him on the cheek. "Hey," she said, burying her nose into his arm. "Renee Warren isn't anyone to you, is she?"

Grayson looked at her, obviously surprised. "That's Clancy's girl, I told you," he said. "Don't tell me you're thinking weird shit, Alexia."

"We just haven't seen much of each other, and I thought—"

"You thought wrong," he said, and kissed the top of her head. "Now. Food."


	4. File 5 - Neptune, and Things - Part 3

Grayson dragged her to a place called Tony's Kitchen, over on Flower Street. A long candy-red plastic counter ran the length of the shop on her right, where several people sat on upholstered bar-stools, chatting about sports, or the latest news. The restaurant was decorated in a kitschy style Grayson had jokingly called Jersey Italian: there was a large mural of the Naples coast on the wall to their left; several prints of Frank Sinatra (in fact, she was almost entirely certain every picture was of Frank Sinatra) trimmed in red neon; _La Italia_ and New York Yankees pennants everywhere. The floor was checkered tile, the colors of the Italian flag.

"Clancy turned me on to this place," Grayson told her, as they sat down on a couple of stools, between a man in a plaid shirt who looked a bit like Tom Selleck, and a woman who Alexia was almost certain was a prostitute. "Looks fucking ridiculous, but they got legitimate New York-style pizza here, and man, that's all I really care about."

A pervasive odor of garlic permeated the air, mingling unpleasantly with the Tom Selleck lookalike's Drakkar Noir. "It's so garish," she remarked, watching one of the employees, a heavy-set Italian man with a slicked mullet, who was positively dripping in gold chains, taking someone's order. "We couldn't have gone somewhere _nicer_ , Grayson?" Alexia looked at him.

"You're problem—" Grayson stopped as the heavy-set man came over and took their order—"You're problem," he resumed, as the man went away to prepare their food, "is you're too goddamn fancy, Alexia. You need to come down from your ivory tower, once in a while. Live like an average jane. It's real cathartic, I promise."

"That's the problem. I'm not average," she said, frowning. "I don't know how to _be_ average."

"Pretend you're Grayson, and you'll be set." Clarence appeared, grinning. He wore a Black Sabbath shirt he'd torn the sleeves off of, and jeans, the knees worn to holes. A blond girl, who Alexia assumed was Renee Warren, stood beside Clarence. "Hey, Alexia," said Clarence, knuckling her head and snickering. "How goes it?"

Automatically, she swatted his hand away. "Don't bloody touch me, Clarence," she warned.

"Hey, Grayson," said Renee, giggling. She wore white rompers, and a stonewashed denim jacket. She wasn't very pretty, Alexia decided; she was average-looking at best, like a poor man's Blondie, someone who Alexia might pass in the street, then never think about again. "Didn't know you came to Tony's too." She gave him a smile with too much teeth. "You're turning into a Raccoon native, huh?"

"They got great pizza," said Grayson, twisting his stool around to face them. The Italian man brought their food over on paper plates, then went away to take the Tom Selleck lookalike's order. "Didn't think you guys were here," he added, sipping Coke from a styrofoam cup.

"I got hungry," said Clarence, shrugging. "Sorry we ditched you back at Game Palace, man." He grinned, then laughed. "Now you know how I feel when Alexia comes with the fucking leash, buddy."

Renee looked at her now and said, "Alexia? You're Grayson's girlfriend?" Alexia couldn't be sure, but she detected something that might have been disappointment in Renee's voice; and that gave her a deep sense of satisfaction. "He didn't mention you."

Alexia scowled at Grayson. "He didn't?"

"Sure I did," said Grayson, leaning back on the counter, on his elbows. "Not my fault they don't listen to me, Alexia."

"I like your accent," said Renee, with a drippy smile.

"Oh, thank you. I like yours too," said Alexia flippantly, picking up her slice of pizza.

Renee looked at Clarence, confused. "I don't have an accent."

Grayson quickly reached over and pinched her fingers together, so Alexia folded her pizza in half like a taco. "You eat it like this, Alexia," he said, as though he was correcting some egregious error. "Jesus." Grayson grinned, and she burned her lip on the hot cheese.

After dinner, they parted ways with Clarence and Renee ("I'll see you later, Grayson," Renee had said, giggling, and Alexia had never wanted to punch someone, not even Birkin, as badly as she had wanted to punch Renee then), and then caught a late-night showing of a new movie titled WarGames, which she'd surprisingly enjoyed.

Back on the Ecliptic, Grayson was enthusing about the movie. "Man, if I could hack like that, it'd be awesome," he said, beaming. He looked out the window, at the wet blur of the Arklay Forest beyond the glass, and asked, "How far's this train go anyway? It's pretty neat. Saw some bed cabins."

"Covers the entire Arklay range," she said, watching him, the train rattling gently around them. "My grandfather and Lord Spencer were actually the ones who'd bought out the original railway company. Though it was James Marcus' suggestion to convert it into a limited express train for Umbrella personnel, mostly for the Umbrella Executive Training Center, back when it was still operational."

"Think Alfred mentioned that place, back at that party Spencer threw in the beginning of the year," said Grayson, scratching his head. "He said it shuttered in '78, and it's been pretty much abandoned since."

Alexia nodded. She'd heard it had been abandoned; but she'd also heard the abandonment had been a cover-up orchestrated by Marcus, so he could perform his experiments in peace. "That's what I've been told," she said, trying not to go too deeply into things, remembering the NDA she'd signed. "But I also hear rumors James Marcus is still there, and so is a small staff of Umbrella personnel—all hand-picked by him." Idly, Alexia wondered if Birkin was part of the staff there; she knew he'd been trained there, before starting at Arklay. "Though I couldn't say whether that's true or not," she added, shrugging. They were alone in this car, so Alexia wasn't too worried about eavesdroppers. "James Marcus doesn't talk to anyone; that's what the senior staff have told me. Scott once mentioned that even my grandfather thought Marcus was barmy, a mad hermit."

"I thought Marcus helped found the company with Spencer and Edward?" said Grayson, staring at her. "Wouldn't that require a degree of, uh, communication?"

"Barely spoke to my grandfather, or Spencer, once Umbrella was founded. Became a shut-in," said Alexia, shaking her head. "That's what Scott told me, anyway. He ought to know. Your father was quite close with my grandfather."

"Yeah," said Grayson, smiling. "Dad said Edward was like a dad to him, that he owed him for everything. When mom got pregnant with me, dad told me Edward was really excited about it, because Alexander never had any kids."

"He never learned about Alfred and I," she said, frowning. "I'm not even sure how he'd feel about us, considering the circumstances of our birth."

"I think he'd have loved you guys," said Grayson, still smiling. He slouched forward, clasping his hands between his knees. "Dad said Edward caught serious 'baby fever', and started having the nursery on Rockfort built—for me, and any kids Alexander might have. But Edward died couple of months before I was born in Jersey, and a couple years before you were born. Still, he did complete the nursery." He laughed, then said, "You got Edward to thank for that fucking carousel in your attic. Of course, by the time we'd finally moved to Rockfort, I was already getting a little too big to enjoy it."

"I'll never forget the time you'd fallen off one of the horses," she said, smiling, because it was a lot funnier in hindsight. "Your head is magnificently dense, Grayson." She rapped her knuckles against her skull for emphasis, and laughed. Then, "It's nice hearing these things about grandfather. How close he was to your family. You're very much part of _our_ family, Grayson, even if you don't ever act like it."

"Aw, shucks, Alexia." Grayson wiped an invisible tear from his eye, and gave her a goofy grin. "You're gonna make me cry."

One of the car attendants, dressed immaculately in a white button-up and black dress trousers, came over suddenly. He said to her, in a calm, professional voice, "Apologies for the interruption, Dr. Ashford. But you've a phone-call."

"From whom?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"They didn't say, I'm afraid," said the attendant. "The phones are upstairs. You may take the call there, Dr. Ashford." The attendant smiled, then went away, vanishing behind the sliding door, into the next car.

"This train has two floors? Damn," said Grayson suddenly, shaking his head. "I thought all those staircases were just for show, or something." He shrugged, kicked his Nike Dynasties up onto the chair beside her, and started leafing through a brochure outlining the various services provided by the Ecliptic Express. "Place even has a bar," he remarked, whistling. "Fancy. And a kitchen. Man, you Umbrella types have it nice."

"Company perks, you know?" she said, smiling. Alexia stood, the train vibrating underneath her, the chandeliers chinking softly as they swayed. "I'll be back, Grayson. It might be Birkin, regarding our current project."

"Sure, sure," he said, turning another page. "Wow. They even sample out cigars. Swanky."

"Keep your temporary train pass on-hand," she warned him, starting to walk away.

"It's in my pocket," he assured her, without looking up from the brochure.

She went upstairs, the metal-trimmed steps thumping hollowly beneath her shoes. The phones were antique rotary phones, the kind her grandfather might have used to make calls fifty years ago. The ornate brass-trimmed handset of one of the phones had been placed on the lacquered mahogany table beside its cradle. Alexia picked it up and said, in a professional voice, "Dr. Ashford speaking."

"Dr. Ashford," said an elderly voice, and it wasn't Spencer. "This is Dr. James Marcus."

"Dr. Marcus?" she said, surprised. Alexia heard a door open, and saw a man in a suit walk past, then disappear downstairs. Thunder roiled in the distance, beyond the train. Her palms started to sweat. She'd been told James Marcus talked to nobody, but he'd called specifically for her. Nervously, Alexia wondered if she'd done something wrong, if maybe Birkin had thrown her under the bus. Composing herself, she asked, "Is there something wrong, sir?"

"No, Dr. Ashford. Not with you, anyway," said Marcus, and she could hear it then, in his voice: paranoia. "I have some things I'd like to speak with you about, but not now, not _here_." He paused, and Alexia could hear his breathing, like soft static. "I'd like to extend an invitation to you. I'd like to personally meet with you at the Executive Training Facility, next Friday. I maintain my laboratory here, you see..."

Alexia stared at a laminated paper tacked to the wall above the phone, which listed calling fees, and rules of conduct when using the phones. Apparently, she was paying twenty-five cents a minute for the conversation, and shouldn't speak above a conversational volume, else she disturbed the other guests. "I was under the impression, sir, that the training facility was closed." It seemed, she thought, the rumors were true, that Marcus really was still there.

"Necessary for my research," said Marcus evasively. Then, "Does six o'clock in the evening work for you, Dr. Ashford? Six o'clock in the evening, next Friday."

"Yes, of course, sir."

"Until then, continue assisting Birkin with Neptune," said Marcus. "I'm paying very close attention to your work, Dr. Ashford, and I'm impressed with what I've seen insofar. And that, I assure you, is difficult to do."

"Thank you, sir."

"Of course."

Dial-tone droned in her ear. Alexia put the handset on the cradle, then returned to Grayson, who was staring dully out the window. When he saw her, he animated, smiling broadly. "Took you fucking long enough," he said, chuckling and straightening in his chair. "Attendant kept bugging me. Showed him the pass, so I'm good." Grayson watched her, raising his eyebrows. "Who called?" he asked. "Was it dad? Alfred?"

"James Marcus," she said, sitting next to him this time, and leaning against him.

"Whoah," he said. "Thought you said the guy was a hermit."

"I thought he was. So did everyone else," she said, staring at the upholstery, some kind of paisley print there in dark maroon. The print made her think of petri dishes, microorganisms swimming there in the magnification of the scope. Alexia clutched her sling bag to her chest, shivering involuntarily. "He said he wants to meet with me next Friday. At the Umbrella Training Facility."

"Guess the rumors weren't complete bullshit," said Grayson, slipping an arm across her shoulders.

"Suppose not," she agreed, closing her eyes. "You know," she said suddenly. "Renee was flirting with you, back at Tony's."

"Yeah, I know," said Grayson. "I got this feeling she's just using Clancy to get close to me. She doesn't seem too interested in him, poor guy. Tried telling him that, but he thinks I'm jealous." He shrugged, his shoulder heaving under her head. "Think that's part of the reason he ditched me at Game Palace, to be honest. Truth hurts, I guess."

Alexia giggled, smiling. "Her face, when she'd found out I was your girlfriend."

"She wasn't expecting it," said Grayson, laughing.

"I'm prettier than her anyway," said Alexia, a distinctly teenage jealousy rising bitterly into her throat. "And I'm smarter."

"No argument there, Alexia," said Grayson, and he stroked the back of her head, his fingers moving softly through her hair. "Relax."

Albert was waiting for her, at the Spencer mansion, still in his black suit. "Little birdy says James Marcus contacted you," he said, as Alexia entered the foyer. It was late, and a profoundly eerie silence hung in the air like a ghost.

"Grayson, I'll meet you in the room," she said, looking at him. Grayson gave her an uncertain look. Alexia smiled, touching his face, her thumb brushing the curve of his tanned cheek. "I'll be along shortly. Umbrella business." He stared at her, then looked at Albert with a degree of suspicion. "It's fine," she assured him. "Really."

Nodding, Grayson said, "Okay," and started upstairs. "But if he does anything to you," he added, pausing halfway up the staircase, "I'll make him hurt." Grayson looked at Albert, pointing. "You hear me, Dr. Wesker? You do anything to Alexia, I'll fuck you up bad. I'm as big as you, so I ain't scared."

"Grayson, please, no need for the silly teenage machismo," said Albert, regarding Grayson with insect calm, an effect heightened by his sunglasses. "I understand you're trying to appear _virile_ to Alexia—the equivalent of thumping your chest. But it's all very unnecessary; I have no intention of hurting her." He smiled mechanically, smoothing his lapel. "Now, run along. Alexia and I have business to discuss."

Grayson scowled, mumbled something unpleasant, and then left. Alexia looked up at Albert. She was tall for her age (5'7, last she'd cared to check), but Albert towered over her, made her feel as though she was standing in the shade of a redwood. "Yes, James Marcus did contact me," she said, and then she remembered the man who'd come out of the room, when she'd been on the phone. "One of your people overheard," she added, understanding.

"Very good, Alexia. Perceptive," said Albert, smiling coldly. "I simply wanted to warn you that James Marcus has gone a bit mad, these last few years. Anything he says should be taken with a grain of salt." Albert started walking, and Alexia followed him into the art gallery, where several paintings Spencer had accumulated over his lifetime were displayed in burnished antique frames, in dim museum light. A large marble statue of a topless woman carrying a vase sat in the center of the gallery. Alexia had once been told the sculpture had come from Italy, a remnant of the Renaissance; though the sculptor's name had been lost. "He's been experimenting with leeches, you see," continued Albert, staring at the vase-woman, hands clasped behind his back. "Treats them like his children—and I don't exaggerate that in the least."

"Like children?" she said, and it made her think of her own research with ants. "I think I understand it."

As though he'd read her mind, Albert said, "I think Marcus sees some similarities in you. He's reaching out." He looked at her. "Your research with T-Veronica nearly parallels his research with leeches."

"How do you know about my T-Veronica research, Albert?"

"Spencer, of course," he said, and shrugged. "If you're worried, I don't know any of the niggling details. Your secrets are safe. But you'd found something in an ant queen; I know that much. Just as Marcus found something in his leeches." Albert smiled. "Parallels."

"If this is an attempt to—"

"Get you to talk about T-Veronica?" he said, chuckling. "No, your research isn't sufficiently fleshed out enough to command my attention. Not yet anyway, Alexia."

 _Not like you'd understand the complexities of my research anyway_ , she told herself. _It's all too far over your head, Albert._ "You'd mentioned before that Marcus has gone mad," she said. "That I should take whatever he says with a grain of salt."

"Paranoia kills even the most steadfast people, Alexia," said Albert, tapping his skull. "The brain can easily be our best friend, or our worst enemy. Marcus has spent too much time alone, in total isolation. His mind has deteriorated. Keep these things in mind, when you speak with him. That's all."

"You seem to know a lot about Marcus, Albert."

"Birkin and I are just about the only people he trusts," said Albert.

"But you make it seem as though you're at odds with Marcus," said Alexia. "It all seems very negative, your relationship with him."

"There's only so much paranoid finger-pointing one can deal with before one loses their shit, Alexia," said Albert candidly, starting toward the door, hands in the pockets of his trousers. "Just keep our little chat in mind." He left.

Alexia stared at the door, wondering what precisely was going on.


	5. File 5 - Neptune, and Things - Part 4

When she arrived in the aqua ring, she felt a certain tension in the air, a controlled panic. As she approached the railing and looked down, into the water, she saw it was red. Alexia thought about the seals, then, when Boudica had torn them apart; the water had looked like that then, too.

"Blood," she said aloud, hearing the purr of the filtration system suddenly kick in.

She noticed a group of researchers on the central ring, huddled together and talking in swift, urgent whispers. One of them—Crackhorn again, she realized—wore a wet-suit, and was fishing something from the water with a long-handled net. A human arm, chewed utterly, shreds of fabric still clinging to the skin. Alexia gagged.

Birkin noticed her, walking across the expansion-grate catwalk. "One of the feeders got stupid," he explained, shaking his head. Alexia watched Crackhorn fish part of a leg from the water, then set it aside on a plastic tarp, human pieces arranged there like some grotesque jigsaw puzzle. "Told the fucking idiot to follow protocol, but people, they want to take shortcuts because they're fucking lazy."

"None of the feeders speak English," she pointed out. Then, "The other feeders were disposed of, I assume? As per company policy."

"Fuck off. I know policy, Ashford." Birkin frowned, watching her wearily, dark bags under his eyes. Alexia wondered when he'd last slept. "Yeah, I sent the assholes to hazard disposal. It's done." Then Birkin looked at the folder tucked under his skinny arm, and sighed. "I have the dubious fucking honor of filling out the reports for the higher-ups," he explained. "This is your fault, you know." He stared at her. "We synthesized a new iteration of the virus from those changes you made to the numbers, and gave it to the new shark. It got big. Really big. Off a small dose." He looked at the water. "Killed Boudica, so that blood's not just the feeder's. Shit. We had to tranq and move the fucking shark to the aux tank."

"The point of the Neptune program is to create weapons, yes? So I made a weapon, Birkin. I did precisely what was expected of me."

"You could have given us a fucking heads-up in your precis, Ashford."

"I did."

"Whatever," said Birkin, rolling his eyes.

"Marcus seemed impressed with my work," she said dryly.

"Yeah, Albert mentioned you've been talking to Marcus. That said, Marcus would be impressed by something like that. It's symptomatic of his precarious mental state," said Birkin, gangling away. "You're both weird fucks. 'Birds of a feather', and all that." A yellow sheet of paper slipped out of his folder, and Birkin cursed, scooping it up and stuffing it back inside. "I need a goddamn vacation," Alexia heard him say, before he'd disappeared into the control room.

She watched Crackhorn fish a half-eaten head from the water. Alexia immediately felt sick again, and quickly followed Birkin.

This had been the first time she'd visited the lower levels of the aqua ring. Several monitors were stacked on tiered racks, each showing a different display: life-support feeds, lettered gene sequences, an inflated digital approximation of a DNA helix, temperature levels for the tank. The tank, down here, occupied the entire wall; she saw bones at the bottom of the tank, an unlucky diver collecting them in a waterproofed nylon bag labeled BIO-HAZARD. "Are those human bones?" she asked Birkin.

"Probably. We lose a couple feeders, now and again," he said, shrugging. Then, "Get back to the control room and start working out the kinks in your modifications. Jesus." He started awkwardly shuffling away, trying to keep the papers from falling out of his folder. "We don't have a fucking eternity to wait for you, Ashford."

"I simply wanted to see what was down here, Birkin."

"You aren't a goddamn tourist. Cut the sight-seeing, and get back to fucking work."

"Birkin," she said, before he was out of earshot.

Slowly, Birkin turned around. A sheet of paper slipped from his folder, cartwheeled gracefully to the concrete floor. " _What_?" he snapped.

"Does James Marcus really trust you and Albert?"

Birkin stared at her. Didn't stop staring, even as he stooped to collect the paper that had fallen out of the folder. "Yeah," he said, and squinted at her. "Why wouldn't he? Did he say something to you?"

Alexia shook her head.

"Marcus is crazy," said Birkin. "Don't take him too seriously."

"He was your mentor," she said.

"Sure," said Birkin, walking away. "He was great. Until he went fucking crazy."

In her room, Alexia told Grayson that she suspected Birkin wasn't telling her something, that maybe she shouldn't go to the meeting with Marcus. What if, she said, Marcus really was insane, and he wanted to hurt her, for some reason.

"I think," said Grayson, sitting on the windowsill, "you're being fucking paranoid."

"I'm just saying I've got this strange feeling," she said, sipping her tea. "Like something bigger is going on. Birkin and Albert, I feel as though they're up to something." Alexia set the tea on her desk, and leaned back in her chair, clasping her hands in her lap.

"They're always up to something. Umbrella, right?" said Grayson, and he stood, started pacing the parquet. "Anyway, say you don't show up to this meeting—" he started to speak with his hands, in soft, emotive gestures—"and Marcus thinks, 'Well, look, this girl can't responsibly stick to a schedule'. Maybe he decides you aren't a good fit for Umbrella, even." He stopped, turning toward her. "He's got as much power as Spencer, Alexia," he added, diplomatically. "Think it's in your best interest to stay on Marcus' good side. Besides, you even said he doesn't talk to anyone. But Marcus wants to talk to you. Gotta be important, right? He's gotta think you're pretty important, if he's wasting his time to talk to you—no offense."

Alexia nodded. "You've a point," she admitted, watching him. "So," she said suddenly, tilting her head. "Why didn't you go to Raccoon today?"

"Got caught up talking to dad on the phone, then Alfred. After that, I just didn't feel like getting on the fucking train." Grayson grinned, then sat in her lap; though he didn't put his full weight on her. Alexia giggled and smacked the back of his shoulder. "Figured I'd just stay in tonight, you know?" he said. "Explored the mansion a bit. Pretty cool place. Spencer's got this room with an old piano in it. Looks like a smoking room. Played some tunes."

"You're a surprisingly talented pianist," said Alexia, looping her arms around his abdomen. Grayson wasn't a very logical boy, but had a certain idiot savant talent with music; he could pick up any instrument, and, after a few hours of puzzling it out, learn to play it with a degree of skill. At seven, he'd taught himself how to read and write music, and play most songs, even more complex pieces, by ear. Alexia liked listening to him play. He'd put on Scott's or Edward's records, and she'd quietly watched as he taught himself _It's a Sin to Tell a Lie_ , _Sugar Blues_ , _A Thousand Dreams of You, Chant of the Groove_ , and a thousand other songs, in perfect synchroneity with the gramophone warble. Grayson had even learned to play her childhood lullaby, and had surprised her, on her tenth birthday, with an impromptu performance of it—his rendition. "How is Scott anyway?" she asked, smiling.

"Dad's good. Told him you were at work, and dad said he'd call back later." Grayson got off her, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his sweatpants. "Alfred was annoying about it, as usual." He rolled his neck, and Alexia heard a faint pop. "Kept insisting I get you, but I told him, 'Look, man, she's down at work. I don't have the credentials'. He kind of just huffed, said he'd call back later too, and hung up."

"Certainly sounds like Alfred." Alexia slipped off her cardigan and draped it over the backrest of her chair, absently smoothing a wrinkle in her blouse. "Grayson, will you come with me to see Marcus?" she asked. "He wanted to only speak with me, but I don't see why you couldn't wait elsewhere, until the meeting concludes. We could go out afterward, perhaps. Game Palace, maybe."

"Attempting to fix your work-life balance?" he joked, grinning at her.

That wasn't too far from the truth, Alexia thought. "Yes, in a way, I suppose," she admitted, smiling sheepishly. "Of course, if you've something planned with Clarence..." She didn't actually want Grayson to hang out with Clarence, but Alexia knew she couldn't really stop him, even if she badly wanted to.

"Nah," said Grayson, gently shaking his head. "Clancy's still kinda pissed at me about the Renee comment. Thinks I'm trying to steal her, or something." He shrugged, nonchalant. "I don't know what goes on his fucked up head, but hey, he'll come around eventually." Another grin split his face. "Besides," he continued, an impish gleam in his pale gray eyes, "you're my girlfriend. And you were my best friend first, so it'd kinda be bad form to leave you hanging with Marcus. That, and dad would fucking throttle me, he found out I wasn't spending enough time with you. He'd say, 'Now, Grayson, that isn't a way to treat a lady. Boy, I'm telling you, get your ass back there, and you treat her right. Or I'll knock your lights out. You hear me'?"

"I'm honestly glad Scott is so supportive," she said, smiling. "Being as young as we are, you would think there would be more resistance on his part."

"Why?" said Grayson, looking at her. "Nothing to worry about. Dad knows we love each other." He laughed brightly, as though he'd suddenly remembered something hilarious. Then, "You know, moment dad found out we'd finally become a thing, he gave me 'the talk', Alexia. It was real fucking awkward. Dad sitting there on my bed, trying to explain sex in abstracts. 'Now, you can't go putting your _thing_ in her _thing_ , kiddo. Know what I mean? That's where babies come from'. It was kinda hilarious, to be honest, once it was all over."

Alexia laughed. "He doesn't have to worry about anything," she said. "I'm not irresponsible. Nor am I ready for sex, Grayson. Just to be clear on the matter."

"I know," said Grayson, bobbing his head affirmatively. "I'd never pressure you into anything, and you know that. And to be honest? Don't think I'm quite ready for it either, 'cause what if I fuck up? I don't wanna be a fifteen-year-old dad, thanks."

"You're a good guy, Grayson," she said, and meant it.

"Well, I dunno about that. But I try. What's that thing dad says?" He canted his head, in thought, staring at the ceiling. "'Sin is the human condition'?" Grayson looked at her now. "And 'good' is a pretty subjective concept, Alexia. Some people think capital punishment, even for murderers, is bad, and then other people think it's good. See? Subjective."

"What's your stance on that?" she asked, amused.

"Depends on why the guy murdered them."

Friday eventually came, and Alexia was nervous. She made sure she was presentable, and had spent two hours rehearsing conversations in the mirror, so she didn't lose her cool in front of Marcus, or seem stupid, or seem in any way incompetent at her job. She was almost as nervous as she'd been during her trinity term; as nervous as she'd been when she had faced the committee panel for her PhD interview; as nervous as she'd been when she had argued Bingham's termination to the Board, alone. Unlike Spencer, Alexia had no personal familiarity with Marcus, which left her at a severe disadvantage: she couldn't gauge Marcus, couldn't anticipate what to expect from him.

"You can do this, Alexia," she told herself, in the mirror, a final time. Her pale reflection stared gravely at her. "You can definitely do this."

Grayson met her on the train platform, and they boarded the Ecliptic together. He'd taken the time to actually dress in a suit. He carried his gunmetal blazer over his shoulder; underneath, he wore black suspenders, and a black button-up shirt. His hair had been neatly pomaded, a single forelock curling over his forehead like an S. "Did it just for you," he said, grinning hugely. They took their seats, in one of the executive cars, and Alexia couldn't help but stare and blush at him. "Marcus is an important guy, so I gotta look important too, right? After all, you're an Ashford, and Ashfords won't let ragamuffins accompany them."

"You won't be in the meeting with us, Grayson. Really, you didn't need to," she said, a small giggle escaping her. Then, "Not that I'm complaining. You look absolutely handsome." Alexia paused, realizing Grayson might interpret that incorrectly. "Not to say you aren't handsome any other time," she added quickly, wringing her hands in her lap. "Just that now you're especially handso—"

Grayson pushed his finger to her lips and laughed. "Relax," he said. "Your awkward is showing."

She nodded stupidly.

"And yeah, I might not be in the meeting with you. But what if Marcus happens to see me?" Grayson beamed. "I wanna do the Ashfords right," he said. "Especially when it's something important, like this."

"Thank you, Grayson," she said, smiling.

"Got nothing to thank me for, Alexia."

They were the last people to disembark the Ecliptic, and Alexia wondered if Marcus had intentionally arranged it that way, to keep people away from his laboratory. The station for the Executive Training Center was especially eerie in its emptiness. A broad, silent concrete tunnel lit by ancient sodium tubes. The car attendant didn't say anything as he shut the door behind them, and the Ecliptic rattled away.

"This place is really creepy," said Grayson, following her up a flight of concrete steps with flaking yellow latex paint. Their footsteps ghosted along the walls, then dissolved into the unnatural silence. "Like really fucking creepy," he continued. "Like we're about to walk-right-into-fucking-Jason Voorhees creepy."

"Grayson, shut up," said Alexia, trying to ignore how uncomfortable the place made her feel.

They emerged into an empty foyer that looked strangely similar to the Spencer estate's foyer, and she supposed George Trevor had built this place too, and thought how very uncreative he must have been to make every one of his projects look the same. The floor was checkered botticino marble, veined with brass. Everything else matched the floor, in varying shades of brown and yellow, as though they'd stepped into a sepia photograph. Alexia noticed several art nouveau details in the walls, and in the windows, which somehow worked well with the odd-looking Victorian furniture. The furniture, she decided, looked like the kind of furniture they used on old horror movie sets, in haunted houses Vincent Price owned.

Atop the foyer stairs, Alexia saw James Marcus' enormous portrait staring wildly at them, his mouth a thin, hard line. She had seen him before at Spencer's party, but something always struck her about his apperance; he was very thin, almost skeletal, with sharp aristocratic features, and a permanent wildness in his eyes.

Something, perhaps an ancient speaker somewhere, suddenly kicked in, and she heard James Marcus' mid-atlantic voice crackling across a 1960s analog wave:

 _Attention, this is Dr. Marcus. Please be silent as we reflect upon our company motto:_

 _Obedience breeds discipline._

 _Discipline breeds unity._

 _Unity breeds power._

 _Power is life._

"That isn't the motto I was taught," said Alexia aloud, looking at Grayson. "I was taught it was 'Preserving the health of the people'."

"Sounds like one of those propaganda speeches from the Third Reich," said Grayson, shaking his head. He shrugged, then looked at her. "Maybe it was the motto before this place shut down? Or maybe Marcus made it up. Doesn't really matter, I guess."

They waited. Alexia checked her watch, which read ten minutes until six. She wondered if Marcus expected her to find his office on her own, or if he planned to show her the way. Part of her wanted to look for the office, but the other part told her it was probably best that she stayed put, else Alexia might miss Marcus.

She heard footsteps, then. "So good to finally meet you, Dr. Ashford."

James Marcus drifted down the stairs, even more skeletal-looking in person, as though he hadn't eaten in days. His face was a sallow mask with hollow cheeks, and heavy bags around the eyes, gray hair slicked back against his long, thin skull. He wore an old tweed suit that smelled of pipe-smoke, the scent mingling unpleasantly with his Acqua Di Parma cologne. "And you're early. Commendable, Dr. Ashford." He looked over at Grayson, and his expression guttered. "Who is this?"

"Grayson Harman. He's a personal attendant of sorts," she explained. "A servant," she clarified, looking at Marcus now, smiling cordially.

Marcus nodded. "He won't be coming with us," he said, and left without waiting for her.

Marcus' office was entirely marble, from the walls to the floor, though in the incandescent light, it had a sick yellowish tint. There were several art deco glass windows, and a pair of sliding doors that led out onto a dark balcony. Marcus sat at a vast desk of lacquered mahogany in front of the windows, behind a rampart of neglected faxes, rolls of print-outs, and thick leather-bound books. Among the papers and books, on his desk, sat a gold-trimmed chestboard with porcelain pieces. The game, it seemed, had ended in a checkmate.

"Have a seat, Dr. Ashford," said Marcus, gesturing at the pair of overstuffed Chesterfield chairs in front of his desk. She did. "Care for some tea?" he asked, with deliberate politeness. "Or coffee, perhaps."

"No, no thank you, sir," she said, and shook her head.

Marcus didn't say anything, or make any kind of acknowledgement that he'd heard her. He was scribbling something down in an opened book with an ornate fountain pen, cast in the shape of, peculiarly, a leech. Alexia remembered what Albert had said, then, how Marcus treated his leeches like children, and she shivered involuntarily.

"You know," said Marcus finally, carefully pushing his pen back into its marble pedestal and looking at her. He bridged his fingers, regarding her blandly over the wall of papers, his cuff-pins twinkling in the light. "I see a great deal of myself in you, Dr. Ashford." He smiled, but like Albert's smile, there was a certain empty mimetic quality to it. "I think you're the only one I can trust. The only one who hasn't yet fallen under Spencer's spell."

"Sir?"

"I'm sure Albert and William have told you I've lost my mind," said Marcus, and he stood, turning toward the window and staring out into the twilight beyond. "But they can't understand true vision. They're students. They imitate things. Albert is manipulative, but overall, a dullard when it comes to research." He clasped his hands behind him, over the small of his back, and squared his broad shoulders, cutting an impressive silhouette against the late evening sky beyond the glass. "William is too focused on his own silly work, on this little rivalry between you and him, that he's become unreliable. And Albert? Well, I never fully trusted him."

"Is this what this is about, sir? The rivalry?" she asked, keeping her tone manicured, polite. "I assure you, it doesn't affect my ability to do my job."

"That isn't why I've called you here, Dr. Ashford," said Marcus, turning toward her, his oxfords scuffing against the marble. "On the contrary, I've come to enlist your help. Spencer is planning to move against me—I can feel it—and I find myself in need of a new reliable right-hand. I can't fully trust William anymore; he's spent too long answering to Spencer, too long that, I'm sure, his allegiance has been compromised. But you? You haven't been compromised, Dr. Ashford."

"What do you mean by that, sir?" Alexia had her guesses, but wanted to hear Marcus confirm them first. "That I haven't been compromised."

"You're still relatively new to Umbrella, and though your family has a history with Spencer, you have operated largely independent of him, Dr. Ashford. That makes you an intensely valuable commodity to me." That mimetic smile came to his wrinkled face again. "Like me, you think outside convention. Like me, you are too intelligent for your peers to sufficiently understand the breadth of your research. What you've been doing with T-Veronica, with Neptune, holds amazing potential, Dr. Ashford. Which brings me to my proposal: I want you to head the Arklay Laboratory, and act as my right-hand."

Alexia stared. Her brain felt jammed. Marcus was offering her a promotion, a very impressive promotion, and she was almost tempted to say yes. But she thought about Antarctica, about her research there, and how difficult it would be to resume that research in Arklay. In Antarctica, she'd already started building her cryostatic tank, and she'd already cut a deal with Spencer; she couldn't just drop those things, to betray Spencer like that.

"I'll offer you double what Spencer is paying you," said Marcus, watching her. He paused. "No, triple," he corrected. " _Triple_ your salary, Dr. Ashford, along with executive perks. Edward was a good friend of mine too. Spencer, he never cared much for Edward, despite what the old bastard might have told you. Edward would rather see you here, I think, in Arklay."

Her throat tightened. She already made a decent salary, but triple that? And executive perks? The offer was looking steadily more attractive to her, even if it meant a huge setback for her T-Veronica research. "That's very generous of you, sir," she said, and meant it. Alexia looked at Marcus. "What would happen with Antarctica? If I were to accept."

"I'd send William there," said Marcus, shrugging, rubbing his right ear-lobe between his thumb and finger. "It would get him far away from my research, and he'd still be producing for Umbrella. As much as I am beginning to distrust him, I don't want to waste his talent." He paused. "I realize the facility was built by your family, Dr. Ashford, and that placing Birkin as the chief researcher is a bit unorthodox, and something Edward wouldn't want. But your brother isn't sufficient for the position."

Alexia nodded. She hated to admit it, but Alfred wasn't a scientist. He was more interested in military things than the scientific. But the thought of Birkin inhabiting her family's research facility, heading the projects there, it made her sick. "You said Spencer was planning to move against you, sir," she said. "What did you mean?"

"Think about it, Dr. Ashford," said Marcus, as though he was speaking to an idiot child. "I'm the only surviving founder of this company, other than Spencer himself." He slipped his hands into the pockets of his tweed pants. "If I wasn't here to keep Oswell in check, act as the restraint, do you realize what sort of chaos would pervade the Umbrella Corporation? Everything Edward and I strove for would be dashed in an instant. Oswell wants to branch out, expand into foreign terrorist markets, all the while pursuing this silly Project Wesker business started by Martin. Oswell is reckless. Mark my words, Dr. Ashford. If Oswell gains sole authority of the company, Umbrella will eventually be finished. Something catastrophic will happen, and Oswell will be motoring into the Supreme Court shortly after, shitting his pants in fear while trying to plead a lost case."

"So you're reaching out to me—"

"Because I have no children of my own, other than my leeches, and leeches certainly can't run a company. You are the only person in this entire fucking company, Dr. Ashford, who can trace themselves back to a founder." Marcus' tone was even, cool. He put his palm flat on his desk, leaning sideways, knocking a few papers onto the floor with his hip. Marcus ignored the papers, staring at her. "You are the only person intelligent enough to take control, should something happen to me," he continued. "Your brother is a lost cause. In short, you're quite literally the only thing that could potentially save this company, Alexia."

"And you want me squarely in your pocket, sir," said Alexia dryly. "I see."

"Only to protect you from Spencer's corruption," said Marcus. "It's too late for William. But you? No, there's still time to save you, Dr. Ashford."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to think about your offer, sir," she said, wanting to leave now.

"Yes, yes. Best to make big decisions after a good night's sleep," said Marcus, finally stooping to collect the papers. He neatly stacked them on his desk. "But keep in mind what's potentially at stake, Dr. Ashford. If you wish to see your grandfather's company thrive, you'd do best to remain mindful of the circumstances." Marcus sat back down at his desk and slid the leech pen from its glossy marble pedestal. "Good night, Dr. Ashford."


	6. File 5 - Neptune, and Things - Part 5

They rode the Ecliptic to Raccoon. Somehow, they wound up in a local park, a quarter to eight o'clock, sitting in a pair of chain-swings bolted to a flaking red-painted steel frame, the plastic seat uncomfortable and cool underneath her. It was summer, so it wasn't quite dark yet; the world was a dark blue color, under a gold-blue sky, and the fireflies turned lazy wheels in the warm-wet air.

Alexia stared at a dirt patch, watching ants skittering around their sandy mound. "You know," she said, "ants are found on every continent, except Antarctica."

Grayson stared at her, his forehead creasing with confusion. "Cool?" he said, using his long legs to gently swing himself, chains creaking precariously on the frame.

Mentally, Alexia kicked herself; it had sounded better in her head. "What I mean to say, Grayson," she said, carefully, "is that James Marcus offered me the position of Arklay's head researcher."

Grayson beamed. "That's great!" he said, shrugging off his gunmetal blazer and tucking it under his arm. "We could finally leave Antarctica, live here, in a real goddamn city." He spread his arms: _look around_. The blazer fell to the ground, though Grayson didn't seem to notice it had fallen, or perhaps he didn't care. Alexia chided him, but Grayson kept grinning. "We could finally hang around kids our age," he continued. "We could go to the movies, or to the arcade, or to other places. Point is, we could actually _do_ stuff, Alexia. Could _go_ places. And people out here, they're people. Regular people. The people in Antarctica? Bunch of socially awkward nerds."

"I wouldn't want you attending a public school, Grayson. They're dreadful."

"So send me to one of those fancy fucking schools for rich kids."

Alexia didn't say anything; really, she was simply trying to rebuff the topic. "I don't know if I can," she said finally, without looking at him. She watched two fireflies wheel around each other, like stars in a binary system. "I have too much research tied up in Antarctica. But James Marcus, he's made a very generous offer..."

"Then what's the problem?" asked Grayson. "You can do your research in Arklay, too."

"I can't. Not really," said Alexia, and shook her head. "As I said," she added, looking at him now, "too much tied up in Antarctica."

Grayson sighed. Then he opened his mouth to say something, but was suddenly interrupted by a loud snap. One of the chains holding up the swing broke, and Grayson hit the ground hard on his ass. Alexia tried not to laugh, but couldn't do it, and she started giggling. "It's not funny," he said, climbing to his feet and dusting his pants off. But Grayson was grinning. "You're an asshole, Alexia."

"I was wondering when the thing was going to break," she said, still giggling. "You're too bloody big, Grayson." Alexia looked up at the sky then, watched the red-gold sun beginning to sink beyond the Downtown skyline. "I'm sorry I can't take the Arklay position, Grayson." She frowned. "I know you don't like Antarctica."

"Gotta do what you gotta do," said Grayson, placing his hand on her head, like Scott often had whenever he'd tried to cheer her up. His hand was large and heavy for a fifteen-year-old, perched on her head like some strange animal. "I'll go wherever you go, so don't worry. Even if it means sitting around Antarctica." The hand went away. She watched Grayson stoop, pick up his blazer and shake ants from it. "Isn't gonna be easy telling Marcus you're uninterested," he added, slinging the blazer over his shoulder. "Hope he takes rejection well."

"So do I," she admitted, remembering how earnest Marcus' plea had sounded. She wondered if Marcus had just been exaggerating her importance to Umbrella, to him, perhaps as a means to appeal to her ego, sway her to his side through sycophancy. He'd said Spencer was up to something, and then Alexia remembered that weird feeling she'd been getting from Birkin and Albert, how they'd kept warning her away from Marcus. Perhaps, Alexia thought, there definitely was something larger at work. "I'll have to speak with him, though it'll be difficult. Marcus rarely takes calls, as I've come to understand." She heaved a sigh. "God, I feel as though I'm permanently trapped in an episode of Dallas, Grayson. Just... corporate intrigue after corporate intrigue."

"Of course there's corporate intrigues, Alexia. That's just how corporate culture works," said Grayson, shrugging. "It's about the biggest guys trampling over the smaller guys, and then claiming all the smaller guys' assets in the sneakiest way possible. Subversion. Dunno what you were expecting. The opening scene from Friday the 13th?" He paused. "You know, the camp-song part," he elaborated. "Though with Umbrella, pretty sure the 'everyone dying' part works too."

"Umbrella isn't like that," she lied.

"I dunno. Company always seems like it's up to some weird shit," he said, and Alexia knew he'd meant his run-in with the zombie, several months ago, at a party Spencer had thrown at the estate. To this day, Grayson was still convinced it had been a junky on a severe tweak, and Alexia wanted to keep it that way. "I'm just saying you shouldn't be surprised if something big is going on, Alexia," said Grayson. "In the end, Umbrella's a corporation, and corporations are only interested in profit. Bottom line."

"You're right," she said, because Grayson was right. She shifted the subject, and asked, "How are things with Clarence?"

Grayson looked at her and said, "He's still mad at me."

"I'm sorry."

"Alfred suggested that I should punch Clancy in the face," said Grayson, watching a firefly land on the back of his hand, flash its green light three times, then take off, disappearing into a tuft of weeds banking a neglected sandbox filled with coarse, dark sand. "Maybe I should."

It was late when they returned to the Spencer estate. Birkin was waiting for her, impatience pretty obvious in his body language. "We need to talk," said Birkin, and then he looked at Grayson, his eyes like cold steel. "Piss off, kid."

"You really wanna go there, Birkin?" Grayson stood a few inches taller than Birkin, who couldn't have been much taller than 5'10. And unlike Birkin, Grayson's body was lean and muscular, a product of religious morning work-out routines. Alexia didn't doubt that, if it came down to it, Grayson could easily hurt Birkin. "From where I'm standing, think you should probably watch it, man."

"Spare me the fucking teenage machismo, you goddamn meathead," said Birkin, looking up, his expression steely and defiant. "Because I'm not impressed, nor am I fucking scared. You're a goddamn neanderthal who, for whatever reason, has managed to impress someone of passable intelligence, like Ashford. Think it's the same mentality behind the kind of people who buy fucking pitbulls: 'Look at me, I got a badass dog who'll chew your face off'."

Grayson made a fist, but Alexia quickly intervened, putting her hands on his arm. "Don't let him rile you up," she said, looking up into Grayson's tanned angry face, who stared at her for a long minute, and then lowered his fist. "It's not worth it, Grayson." Truthfully, Alexia wanted to avoid the inconvenience of legal action, of Umbrella becoming involved, should Grayson badly hurt Birkin, or do worse.

"He's a little bitch anyway," said Grayson, and he walked away, toward the stairs.

"That's right," said Birkin, to Grayson. "Go back to your cave, you fucking troglodyte!"

Grayson halted on the bottom step, and Alexia saw him tense. Then he went stiffly upstairs, and vanished.

"If you ever talk to him like that again," said Alexia suddenly, whipping around on Birkin. "I'm going to make you regret it, Birkin."

"Your threats are as empty as your caveman's head," said Birkin, gesturing in the direction of the stairs. Then, "You went to see Marcus." There was a strange intensity in Birkin's eyes, then. "What did he say to you, Ashford?"

"None of your bloody business, Birkin."

"Don't make me hurt you." There was a certain quality in Birkin's voice that chilled Alexia's blood, an effect heightened by his pale sleep-starved features, and his unkempt hair, as though a psychopath had just told her, very calmly, that she would die if she didn't cooperate. "What did Marcus say to you, Ashford?" he asked, coolly.

"He wanted to promote me," she said, suddenly feeling scared. She wasn't big like Grayson, and Birkin could easily overpower her, if he really wanted to. They were alone, too, in the foyer. "He wanted me to take over Arklay, and send you to Antarctica."

Birkin's expression didn't change, though his eyes gleamed strangely. He seemed to loom suddenly, filling copius space. "What else?" he said.

Alexia didn't want to betray Marcus's trust, but she also didn't want Birkin to hurt her. And his body language implied that Birkin really, very badly, wanted to hurt her. "He said Spencer was up to something. That you and Albert were involved, somehow," she said, trying to inch away. But every time she tried to move away, Birkin stepped closer. "It was just the ravings of a paranoiac, Birkin. I don't actually intend to take the position. Your job is safe; I don't want it."

Birkin nodded. "And nothing else?"

She shook her head. "Nothing else."

Birkin nodded again, then went away, disappearing through the doors that led into the gallery.

Alexia went to her room, shaking. And started to cry there, very quietly.

Grayson noticed immediately. "Did that motherfucker hurt you?" He gently pushed her hands away from her face. "You look okay." Grayson stared at her now, a quiet rage in his eyes. "What the fuck did Birkin do to you?" he asked, his tone cold and mean. "Did he _touch_ you?"

"No," she said, her breath hitching. "Birkin didn't do anything. He just scared me, is all." Alexia wiped at her eyes with the heels of her palms, her eyes stinging. Gradually, the tears went away. She couldn't sustain that kind of emotion, not for very long anyway, because it exhausted her. Her body, she had long ago decided, performed these emotional blow-offs as a way to regulate, to vent, like fans in a machine that kept the parts from overheating. "I think he _wanted_ to do something. To hurt me. I don't know." Alexia hung her head, running her fingers back through her hair in frustration. "Oh, Grayson, this rivalry is getting too far out of hand."

"Considering he's a grown fucking man, and acting like this toward a teenage girl—you know what, fuck Birkin," said Grayson, heading for the door. "I'm gonna find his scrawny ass and beat his head in."

Alexia stopped him. "Don't," she warned. "It's not worth it, Grayson. I promise." She knew what Umbrella might do, how they might make Grayson quietly disappear one night, if he murdered one of their best researchers. Grayson, like her brother, had readily shown a capacity to kill with Alexander, with that boy in Atlantic City, with Mark Quinn, when Grayson had nearly beaten his head in with a rock, and had only stopped because Scott had intervened; and Alexia had no doubt that Grayson wanted to do the same to Birkin. But Birkin, like her, and many of the other top scientists, were a precious finite commodity that Umbrella couldn't afford to lose.

Once Alexia was sure Grayson had calmed down, she removed her hands from him and said, "My gut-feeling was right, I think. Something is definitely going on between Marcus, Birkin, and Albert."

"What do you think it is?" he asked, sitting on the edge of her bed, the coil-springs creaking gently underneath him.

"Marcus made it sound like Spencer was after him. Marcus is the only other living founder."

"A coup," said Grayson, watching her. "And maybe Birkin and Wesker are the guns Spencer's gonna use to shoot him."

"But I can't imagine Lord Spencer ever doing something like that."

"He's an old rich guy, Alexia," said Grayson. "Greed makes people do crazy shit."

"Marcus said he'd reached out to me because I was the only other person in the company who could trace themselves to a founder."

"Law of Stability," he said. "Guarantee you that Marcus plans to bump off Spencer, but wants you in his pocket beforehand."

"There's no such thing as the Law of Stability, Grayson."

"Sure there is, in an unspoken sense among the ultra-rich," said Grayson, folding his arms. "Monarchy, for example, has been practicing that shit for centuries, Alexia. Marcus probably realizes Spencer's up to something bogus, and you're the lesser of two evils. You're also young, and consequently, Marcus probably thinks you're easier to manipulate, so the power of the Umbrella Corporation stays in his hands. Basically—" Grayson started plucking at the air, as though he was manipulating a marionette's strings "—you become his little puppet. You do what Marcus tells you to do, because you're young and don't know any better about running a multinational biz, and you don't wanna piss off people, step on the wrong toes. It's kinda like putting a child-king on the throne, so their mother, or some other adult, can run the kingdom for them from the shadows."

"You think Marcus said all those things to endear himself to me?"

"Duh," said Grayson, as though that should've been obvious to her. "What's the best way to make an Ashford your best friend? You stroke their ego, of course. You make them feel like royalty. Look at Alfred. I can get him to do pretty much anything I want, after I kowtow enough for him."

Alexia smiled. "Is that how we got to where we are, Grayson? You stroked me ego?"

"Duh," he repeated, grinning. "You should see how goofy your face gets, after I compliment you enough. Of course, unlike Alfred, I actually _mean_ the compliments I pay you. So never fear, dear Alexia, our relationship is not, in fact, an elaborate charade."


	7. File 5 - Neptune, and Things - End

Albert called her room, unexpectedly one night, and told her to meet him outside the Spencer mansion.

He was waiting for her, beside his black jaguar, hands in his pockets. He wore a nice black Italian suit, his face unreadable under the Ray-Bans. "We need to talk," he said, opening the passenger door for her. Alexia hesitated. "I'm not going to hurt you," he assured her, and Alexia believed him.

Alexia climbed inside the car, and Albert thunked the door shut. It smelled of Albert's cologne, and of new leather. Albert got behind the wheel and drove, his wipers smearing rain-drops across the glass, The Animals singing _House of the Rising Sun_ on the radio.

"Birkin threatened you," he said matter-of-factly, once they were on the highway, which, if they kept going, would eventually funnel them into Raccoon City, onto Flower Street, and past Tony's Kitchen. The highway was dark, and there wouldn't be any lights, Alexia knew, until they were closer to the city.

"He did," she said, and Alexia didn't even bother to ask how he'd known that. She watched the woods blurring past the window. "He said he'd hurt me, if I didn't tell him about my meeting with James Marcus."

"If it's any consolation, and I very much doubt it is, but," said Albert, without looking at her, the cold dashboard lights reflected in his sunglasses, "he wouldn't actually do it. Birkin is all bluster. That said, what did Marcus tell you?"

"He wanted to promote me." For whatever reason, Alexia didn't feel the need to keep secrets from Albert. She felt a strange sort of familial attachment to him, in fact, as though he was an uncle she'd never known she'd had. "To Arklay. He wanted to send Birkin to Antarctica."

Albert didn't say anything, as though he already knew her answer to Marcus' offer was no.

"I didn't take it," she said, watching the wipers now. "Too much tied up in Antarctica."

"Good," he said, and Alexia was surprised. She thought Albert, as her mentor, would have wanted her to take the promotion. Albert must have sensed her surprise, and said, "There's a bit of a problem right now, and I don't want you in the middle of it, Alexia."

"Grayson thinks Spencer wants to kill Marcus. A coup," she said.

Albert said nothing.

"That isn't true, is it?"

"Of course not," said Albert smoothly. "Can't imagine where Grayson would get such a silly idea. Spencer and Marcus, they're partners."

"Why are we here, Albert? In your car."

"I wanted to tell you to back away from Marcus," he said. "Keep out of things. Focus on your T-Veronica."

"Albert, what's going on?"

"Alexia," said Albert, with a concerned air, "the less you know, the better. I wouldn't want something unfortunate to happen to you, or to young Grayson."

"Are you threatening me?" she asked sharply. "Threatening _us_?"

"No," said Albert, his expression unchanging under the Ray-Bans, resolute. His face, Alexia decided, was like something carved from marble, immutable and severe, like the busts she'd seen of her dead relatives: former politicians and prominent military commanders, their faces eternally scowling. "But meddling never does any good for anyone," he continued. "Curiosity killed the cat, and I don't want the cat to die."

"You're concerned," she said.

"I've taken you under my wing, so I feel a certain responsibility for you," said Albert, his mouth a thin, hard line. As usual, he remained evasive, or, at best, very obtuse, about his point. "You've been a good pupil," he added, solemnly. "I would hate to see your career cut short."

Marcus never came up again in their conversations. Alexia said good night to Albert on the mansion porch, who told her to remember what he'd told her, and then, in typical Albert fashion, had vanished into the Arklay night before she could say yes, she wouldn't forget.

She went to her room. Grayson was there, leaning out of the window and smoking a cigarette. "You promised me you wouldn't smoke those disgusting things," she snapped, any details of her conversation with Albert quickly evaporating, then, becoming mild anger. "I told you I'd tell Scott if I—"

Grayson turned around, frowning. His right eye was black and swollen. Before Alexia could ask him what had happened, he said, "Birkin. Little asshole got the sneak on me. Tried to fight back, but he had these Umbrella guys from Security, I guess, come at me." He winced, rubbing his side. "Jesus, my fucking side hurts."

Alexia wondered if Albert had intentionally removed her from the mansion, so Birkin could hurt Grayson. She quickly ran over, forgetting about Albert right now, pulling up Grayson's shirt. His side was bruised, a deep ugly purple-red. "What did they do?" she asked coldly, looking at him.

"Told you," said Grayson, finishing his cigarette and flicking it out the window. "Got the sneak on me. His Umbrella buddies smacked me around a bit, told me to keep out of company biz. Smacked me across the side with their fucking blackjacks, or whatever."

"If something was broken, you'd be in a lot more pain," she said.

"I was really banged up. But funny thing," said Grayson, looking at her, and it seemed, to Alexia, that the swelling of his eye had gone down, "it went away. The pain, I mean. It still aches, but it's not _painful_. Know what I mean?"

Alexia remembered Bingham's virus, then. Grayson had told her about a bad cut he'd gotten at Game Palace, not very long ago, and how it had healed in just a few hours; he didn't even have the scar anymore. Alexia didn't doubt that, by morning, the bruises, and the swelling, would be gone too. "You'll be all right," she assured him, touching his arm. "Did they do anything else to you?"

He shook his head. "I think they wanted to, but they stopped."

Birkin, Alexia knew, wanted to experiment on Grayson, and because he wanted to experiment on Grayson, Birkin wouldn't actually try to kill him. The prototype virus present in Grayson's body was more valuable in a live-study than in a dead one. "I'm going to bring this up to Spencer," she said, stroking his face. "I promise."

"Don't," he said, pulling away. "If Birkin gets in trouble, I'm dead meat, he hears I ratted on him. Not too mention the shit it'd kick up for you." Grayson held her hands now, squeezing. "Just leave it alone, Alexia," he urged, shaking his head. "I'm tough. Ain't the first time I've been knocked around."

Grayson made a good point. Birkin was vindictive enough to hurt him again, Alexia was sure. Umbrella, she'd found, had a way of rewiring personalities, a secret algorithm that tapped into some latent primal code inherent in every person's brain, and then dredged up their worst qualities, to better adapt them to the hostilities of Umbrella's very particular brand of white-collar Darwinism. "Did Birkin say anything to you?" she asked. "Before he'd left you alone."

"Uh." Grayson's expression was sheepish. Then, quietly, "He, uh, wasn't actually there."

"You said Birkin was there, Grayson."

"I mean, who else would send Umbrella security types after me?" Alexia watched his forehead crease, a look of doubtful confusion bleeding into his thin features. "You heard him, back in the foyer. Called me a troglodyte, a meathead." Grayson stared at her. "And he hates you," he added. "Just makes sense, I guess."

"I despise Birkin, but," she began, frowning, "you must be careful with accusations, Grayson."

"Yeah, I know."

"So don't go spreading that around," warned Alexia, watching him. "Don't give Birkin ammunition. We don't know if it actually was him, even if it makes the most sense." She paused, looking away and sighing, staring at the phone on her desk. "I can't bloody wait to return to Antarctica."

"Neither can I, truthfully," said Grayson. "I've had enough of this fucking place."

Several days later, James Marcus called her on the phone and told her to come to the Training Facility, no delays, he had something very important to discuss with her. Marcus watched her across the vast mahogany expanse of his desk, in a sober herringbone suit. No papers, rolls of print-outs, and neglected faxes occupied his desk this time, Alexia realized, and there was a certain somber air about Marcus now, a mood that made her think of funeral parlors. His chessboard was set for another match, the rows of white and black pieces lined up neatly.

"You've been talking to people," said Marcus, and Alexia knew he'd meant Birkin and Albert. His mouth became a hard line, like an old knife-wound, as though someone had carved it there, years ago, in old gray bark. "You," he continued, with the air of a dying man, "have sealed my fate, Alexia."

"Sir?" She sat there, in the overstuffed Chesterfield, and thought about Grayson's theory again, about a coup. Alexia felt a mounting nervousness in her chest. "I don't—"

"You know exactly what you did," said Marcus, jabbing a finger at her. "You told Birkin about my offer."

"Sir, he was going to hurt me. I was scared."

"Now Spencer knows," said Marcus, ignoring her. "Now Spencer knows, and I'll pay the price. When? It's hard to say. But now, now I must take countermeasures. Remain vigilant." He shook his head and stood, arms behind his back. Suddenly, Marcus looked a thousand years older to Alexia. "It won't stop with you," continued Marcus. "They'll go after your attendant too, eventually. The boy. He knows things, and doesn't realize he knows them. Too sharp. Spencer? Spencer will just assume he's been talking to the wrong people." Marcus looked away from her, staring out the window. "Leave, Dr. Ashford. Your involvement with Neptune is also terminated. I don't need you there anymore; I rescind my offer of the Arklay laboratory."

"You don't need me there anymore?" she repeated, watching Marcus.

"No. I put you there to gauge your skill, and skill you have. But your trustworthiness is severely lacking."

"Sir, Birkin was going to _hurt_ me," she said.

"Leave, Dr. Ashford."

* * *

Alexia was dead, and so was Marcus, five years later. Alfred, now eighteen, had come gangling into his room and had told him all about it.

"They found him in the laboratory, mate." Alfred was tall and thin, and very pale, something almost reptilian in his face now. He wore a pastel get-up that made him look as though he'd stepped out of an episode of Miami Vice. "Bullet in the head," he continued, tapping his skull, sitting down in the chair at his computer desk. Crisp sunlight poured through the diamond-paned window on Alfred's right, and Grayson still found it strange, after what had felt like an eternity of Antarctica, seeing the English countryside beyond the glass. "They don't know who did it."

"Birkin," said Grayson, now twenty, remembering, at fifteen, when Birkin's goons had beaten him down in the Spencer estate foyer. "Bet you it was fucking Birkin and Wesker. I said that to Alexia back then, but she'd told me not to jump the gun." He shook his head, watching the motes turn lazy circles in the sunlight. "No, I'm not surprised Marcus is dead, Alfred. Spencer wanted him dead, man. You know that well as I do. Spencer's bad news—you said it yourself."

"We have no proof, Grayson."

"We should tell dad," said Grayson. "What if Spencer plans to whack you next?"

"Why would he?" said Alfred, watching him. "I have no claim to the company until I'm twenty-one. And even then, I don't really want Umbrella. It was..." Alfred trailed off, his expression guttering. It was rare, seeing Alfred look that uncertain about something, that lacking in confidence. "It was supposed to be Alexia's responsibility," he continued. "I didn't even _want_ to become the family head, Grayson. I had no choice."

"I don't envy you," said Grayson, and meant it. He couldn't imagine how heavy that weighed on Alfred's shoulders, carrying the burden of the Ashford reputation, and its legacy as one of the founding families of Umbrella. To Grayson, it seemed like something that required a degree of supernatural fortitude. "I wish you didn't have to do it either, man. Makes you a target, and I don't want you to be a target, because you're my best friend." He frowned. "I don't want you winding up like Marcus, dead in some laboratory, with your brains on the wall."

"Sometimes I wish I could foist the burden onto one of my relatives," said Alfred, clasping his hands between his knees and sighing, staring at his white loafers. "But Scott tells me that I need to see this through, for Edward."

Grayson nodded. Then, "Not to get derail you, buddy, but they find anything else about Marcus?"

"Sort of," said Alfred, shrugging. "When they found him, he was surrounded by leeches."


	8. File 6 - I'm Lucky I Have You - Part 1

**I'm Lucky I Have You**

 **Antarctica Facility – July, 1968**

Scott hurried down the corridor, carrying Eddy's usual coffee, and some shortbread Scott had baked that morning. He guessed Eddy was in his study; the scientists had said they hadn't seen him down in the labs at all, and Eddy, that cat never rested, always needed something to rattle his brain, just like his kid Alexander.

 _Well_ , Scott thought, shouldering through the door of Edward's office, _guess Alexander isn't exactly a kid, when he's your age,_ _pal_.

Eddy, as expected, sat behind his vast desk of polished Vietnamese rosewood, barely visible behind towers of papers and books. He was clacking away on his typewriter, probably some report or another for his work, and smoking his pipe, a fragrant tobacco smell wafting through the room—Marcovitch, maybe, or Balkan Sobranie.

Eddy smiled around his pipe, noticing Scott hovering by the desk. Bill Kenny crooned _I'm Lucky to Have You_ on the record-player. "Hold on, chap, hold on. I just have to clear a spot," said Edward, his accent a crisp RP, tinged, faintly, with a certain roughness from his years of pipe-smoking. He started clearing some papers, unceremoniously stuffing them into a worn folder. "Here," he added. "Put it there."

Scott put the tray down, watched Eddy immediately go for the shortbread, and a sip of the black coffee. "Busy day, Eddy?" he asked. Scott wouldn't normally ever talk to his employers like that, like they were friends, but Eddy had doggedly insisted that things stayed informal between them. And in the time Scott had worked for Eddy, it had gotten easier; he'd developed a certain paternal fondness for the Englishman.

"Always." Eddy was in his fifties, but in good shape for a cat his age. He sported a thick handlebar mustache, iron gray like his hair, streaked with pale gold. His eyes were powder blue, sharp and intelligent under shaggy eyebrows, and he wore, as always, a choice suit and checked tie. "Spencer and Marcus have been hounding me incessantly, ringing me every bloody chance they can." Eddy looked at him, pale, manicured fingers meditatively stroking his mustache. "Things have been quite hectic, Scott. Decided on this sleepy little town—Raccoon City, I wouldn't suppose you've heard of it? No? Hardly surprising. A town of little consequence in the American midwest—for Umbrella's headquarters. It's going to take quite an investment to make the town viable, but, as much richer men than I have said before me, it costs money to make money." He sighed theatrically and shook his head. "My boy," warned Eddy, with a sagely air. "Don't ever start a corporation. It's far too much work. I rather be bloody golfing."

"That why you stayed in Antarctica, Eddy? To get out of work."

Eddy grinned, his teeth the color of old ivory. Pipe-smoke billowed around them.

"I'm going to take that as a yes."

"Well, I would have had Alexander go, but he's been up to some project or another of his. He doesn't tell me anything." Eddy shrugged, turning back to his typewriter and tapping out something on the keys. "Won't it be lovely when things finally settle down?" he asked, around his pipe. "Then, my boy," he continued, "I'm going to go golfing."

"Don't you have projects of your own to complete?"

"I own Umbrella, or soon will, once Spencer and Marcus finalize that nonsense. That said, I do as I damned please, Scott." Eddy chuckled, tearing the paper from his typewriter and setting it aside. "Golfing, lad," he continued. "Somewhere warm, perhaps. But not too warm. I burn dreadfully in the sun."

Scott gave Eddy a light-hearted shove, and Eddy laughed, exaggerating the lines around his mouth, and at the corners of his eyes. "Anyway, best get back to work, chap. You know how Alexander gets." He grinned, and said, "He cares more than I do when you slack off." Eddy paused then, as though a thought had suddenly occurred to him. "Though," he added, raising his eyebrows, "before you go, how's your wife Alice?"

"She's fine. Baby makes her sick sometimes, I think. But all in all, Alice is doing well."

"Have you thought of any names for the little lad or lady, Scott?"

"Well, if it's a girl, we're going to name her Olivia, after my mother, because she's the toughest damn woman I know," said Scott, smiling. His real father had abandoned them when Scott had been too young to care. "If it's a boy, we're going to name him Grayson. That was Alice's father's name. He died during the Second World War. Luftwaffe shot him down in the Battle of Britain, but Grayson, he took a few of the Krauts with him."

Edward nodded. "I remember those days," he said, shaking his head. "Part of the reason I'd gotten such a late bloody start on my education. I was stationed in France, for a good while. Attended university in the United States, once I'd completed my term of service, where I'd met Marcus and Spencer. You know the rest."

"Somehow, I find it hard to imagine you in the military, Eddy."

"War has a way of making one feel extremely patriotic, Scott," said Eddy, amused. "And there is nothing quite more patriotic than spilling blood in the name of Jolly Old England."

"Except maybe singing God Save the Queen _while_ spilling blood for Jolly Old England." Scott grinned, and Eddy laughed. The way Eddy laughed was like a caricature of laughter, like something that belonged in the cartoons Scott had watched as a small boy in Hoboken movie-houses. "Well," said Scott, "I better get back to work." He jerked his thumb at the door, adding, "Before Alexander gets hacked about me taking my sweet old time."

"Yes, yes. I know how my son gets," said Eddy, waving dismissively. "Go on, Scott."

Scott fell into his usual routine of cleaning. He was wiping down the bookcases in the library when Alexander came in and asked, very conversationally, "How's Alice doing?" Unlike Eddy, Alexander had this cold look about him, like some kind of pale reptile, with powder blue eyes and red-orange hair. He was a tall cat like Eddy, and tapered: broad in the shoulders, narrow at the hips. But he didn't share his old man's sense of fashion; Scott was pretty sure he'd never seen Alexander in any other color but black, gray, or white.

"Wife's doing fine," said Scott, climbing down the ladder and wiping his sweaty hands on the cloth he kept in his back pocket. "She's in Jersey with my family, right now," he continued. "Doesn't much care for Antarctica. Says it's too isolated. Alice, she's always been real social, needs people to talk to. How you doing, Alexander?"

"Need I remind you, every time we speak, Scott, that I don't share my father's sense of informality," said Alexander, in a voice every bit as cold as his looks. His accent made him sound even colder. English accents, Scott had found, could either make someone sound smart, or sound downright evil.

"Right. Apologies, Dr. Ashford," said Scott, professional-like. Alexander was several times meaner than his old man, and Scott, he wasn't really looking to start anything with him. So he just smiled like a good kid, and started wiping down the tables and chairs. "If you don't mind my asking, sir, how's work?" Alexander liked talking about his work, and it was the best way, Scott knew, to get back on the guy's good side.

"Good. Code: Veronica is coming along nicely. I've finally found the 'intelligence gene', Scott. Great things are going to happen." Alexander smiled emptily at him. "We've run a few trials already. All failures, however. But each one has brought us one step closer to the thing we're looking for."

"And what's that, sir?" asked Scott, dusting the portaits now.

"A savior for the Ashford family," said Alexander, in his usual ambiguous way. Even though Alexander liked talking about work, he always talked about it in generalizations, and Scott figured it was either because whatever Alexander was doing was highly classified stuff, or because Alexander supposed he wouldn't understand anything, even if he'd bothered to tell him. And Alexander would be right, in that regard; Scott didn't understand a damn thing the eggheads did, down in the labs.

"Savior, huh? You still on about that 'curse' thing, sir?" asked Scott, remembering things Edward had told him. Apparently, Alexander was a pretty superstitious guy, and chalked up the current down-spiral of the Ashford name to some crazy voodoo, a curse put on the Ashford family. Scott thought it was pretty stupid stuff—curses and voodoo didn't exist—but he'd never said anything about it, because Alexander was his employer. And as his employer, Alexander commanded a certain degree of respect, regardless of his odd beliefs.

"Yes, a savior," said Alexander, sorting through the books of a nearby shelf. Scott watched him pull out a book on genetics, open it, then turn his back toward him. "You recall Veronica Ashford?"

Scott sure did recall Veronica; Alexander never shut up about her. She was the Ashford matriarch, the woman who'd put the family on the map. In a time when women were seldom educated, Veronica had been a savant, had taught herself advanced mathematics and their related theories, among several other robust subjects; and there were stories, in the Ashford clan, that Ada Lovelace had actually been one of her students, and that Charles Babbage had actually consulted with Veronica on the matter of his difference engine. Scott wasn't sure how true any of that was, but figured it wasn't too far-fetched, if Veronica had really been as intelligent as Alexander and Eddy claimed. "Yes," said Scott, finally. "I remember you mentioning her, sir."

"Yes, well, I'm going to bring her back."

"Bring her back, sir?" said Scott, staring at him.

Alexander nodded. He looked completely serious, and Scott wasn't sure how to feel about that. "Well, it won't be _exactly_ her. A clone, of sorts. I've already decided on a name, for the one that succeeds: Alexia."

"Alexia?"

"Lovely name, isn't it? I'd gotten the idea from this book I'd read on Alexander the Great."

"Sir. A clone?"

"Indeed. I'll introduce Veronica's DNA to a surrogate egg, and a child—"

"That's not how God intended for that to happen, sir," said Scott. "Maybe you shouldn't do His work for him. All due respect."

Alexander stared at him. "Your zealotry is annoying," he remarked, frowning, something even colder now in his tone, and in his eyes. Scott shivered involuntarily. "This is necessary for the Ashfords, Scott."

"Still doesn't seem right, sir," said Scott, politely. "A baby born like that, I mean."

"The egg will also have my DNA, Scott. The child will be my biological child."

"You found yourself a lady?" asked Scott, because this had been the first time he'd ever heard about it. Alexander had always been a lone wolf, somehow sexless, seemed to avoid intimacy like it was Satan's touch.

"Yes," said Alexander, his expression unreadable. "But there won't be any sex involved."

"Sir, I don't get how, then—"

"Insemination. I'm not going to touch some random woman."

"Sir, why are you telling me this? Does Eddy know?"

"My father doesn't know yet," said Alexander. "And I suppose I'm telling you this because I feel like it, Scott. It's something that's never been done before, a new science."

"Sir, again, all due respect, but this is unnatural. This is against God."

"Your God doesn't matter to me in the least, Scott," said Alexander. "Fairytale rubbish."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, sir," he said.

"I'm sorry you believe in a book of tall tales," said Alexander, crisply. He turned around, tucking the genetics book under his arm and starting toward the door. "This is precisely why science hasn't advanced much. Because of irritating bible-beaters like you. Now, I'm going to announce my research to father." Then Alexander was gone.

"Alexia," said Scott, shaking his head, the name sitting oddly in his mouth. He looked up at the ceiling, and said, solemnly, "God, forgive Alexander. He knows not what he does."


	9. File 6 - I'm Lucky I Have You - Part 2

That night in his room, he spoke to Alice on the phone.

"It's nice here, in Atlantic City." Scott was happy to hear her voice again, hear the faint English accent in it, diluted by her years in New York. "How have things been in Antarctica, Scott? I'm terribly sorry I'm not there." Scott could see her face then, like a porcelain doll's, and she was pouting in his mind, her blue eyes large and sad. "You know how I can't stand all that seclusion out there," she said. "It's dreadful. I don't know how you or how the Ashfords stomach it. Here? Here I think is better for the baby."

"I agree," he said, and he did. There, the baby would have family, and Alice would have access to the comforts of civilization to get over that first hump of motherhood. Scott stared at the mahogany wainscoting, and he frowned.

"Don't sound so sad, Scott. I'll return to you," she assured him, and Scott could hear the bright smile in her voice. "It's for the baby, Scott. Antarctica isn't a place for newborns. Besides, the scientists there frighten me. I don't know why. They've been perfectly nice people, but there's something so odd about them..."

Scott knew what Alice meant. There was always this omnipresent air of scheming in the facility, as if the scientists were collectively working toward some singular evil goal. He thought about Alexander, what he'd said about Alexia, and he wondered if, maybe, that was why the scientists made him feel so uneasy; they were growing children in tubes. He loosened his tie, then started to slip off his oxfords, cradling the phone between his shoulder and jaw. "Alice," he said. "Alexander. Has he ever mentioned anything to you about Code: Veronica?"

Alexander had always been pretty chatty with Alice. Alice had a talent, Scott had long ago realized, of making people want to confide their deepest secrets in her, which was precisely how they'd met. They'd been perfect strangers on the subway, and Scott had been sitting beside her, and for whatever reason, he'd just started talking to her about everything—how he'd just gotten out of Vietnam, how he'd gotten back from a job interview at a steel mill in Long Island—and he'd missed his stop. Alice had just smiled the whole time, and she'd talked about her family in England, about her secretarial job at a firm in Manhattan. When they'd hit the last stop, Scott had asked her out, and she'd, of course, said yes; a year later, they'd married.

A long pause on the line. Then, "Well, not in detail. He mentioned it in passing, I'm sure."

"Does the name Alexia mean anything to you?"

Silence. "Yes," she hesitated.

"What's wrong?"

Alice didn't answer right away. Then he heard her take a breath, and she said, "He'd initially asked me to mother the child."

His hand went white-knuckled around the handset. "What?" he said.

"I said no, it was disgusting to even ask that of me," said Alice, and that relieved him. "He assured me there wouldn't be any touching. I still said no. I have my morals, Scott. You don't actually think I would have _agreed_ to that?"

"No, you're right. You wouldn't."

"Alexander never spoke to me again after that," said Alice. "I'm honestly glad. He's always frightened me, to be honest. He's nothing at all like Edward, who's a complete dear."

"I ought to clock him," said Scott, scowling. "Alexander, I mean. Asking you those sort of things..."

"Don't, Scott. We need your job," she said. "The baby and I. You won't find better wages elsewhere, and you've a family to think about now."

"You're right, Alice."

"I love you, Scott."

He smiled. "I love you, too, Alice. Say hello to my sisters, would you?"

Alice giggled. "Too late, they'd already told me to say hello to you," she said. "I'd just forgotten until now, truthfully. Your father misses you, too. So does your mother."

"Step-father," he corrected. Then, "I'll visit in a few weeks. Promise. Just need to sort things with Eddy."

"I'm sure Edward will grant you time-off to see your wife and family, Scott."

Edward would, Scott was sure. That cat was a class act. "Yes, I know. Anyway, I really need to sleep, dear," he said, suppressing a yawn. "Have a few things to do around the mansion tomorrow."

"That's my hard-working man," said Alice, chuckling. "I'll ring you later, love."

"Looking forward to it."

"I love you," she said again, and Alice hung up.

Scott listened to the dial-tone for several minutes, imagining her voice there. And then he put the handset on the cradle, and went to sleep.

A few days later, Scott was in the middle of cleaning Edward's office when Edward suddenly came in, and he said, "I can't believe that bloody son of mine." He wore a new pale seersucker suit today, and a silk candy-striped tie.

Scott wasn't sure if he should ask about Code: Veronica. Then he decided Eddy wouldn't have said anything if he really hadn't wanted him to ask, and Scott said, "I take it this has something to do with Code: Veronica?" He wiped down a marble bust of Stanley Ashford, in a neglected corner of Eddy's cluttered office.

Eddy sat in the overstuffed Chesterfield and took out his pipe, which he'd kept in an antique wooden box with ivory inlays in the top drawer of his desk. He packed the pipe-bowl with tobacco, lighting it in almost ritualistic fashion with an ornate silver flip-lighter he'd procured from his jacket. The lighter was engraved with the Ashford coat-of-arms: a golden eagle with its wings spread, clutching a halberd in its talons. "Ah, yes, Alexander mentioned he'd told you," said Eddy, and the lighter disappeared behind a pale lapel. "Yes, that's precisely it, chap. It's—well, I don't know how I quite feel about it. Alexander has yet to create a successful clone." He shrugged, watching Scott from across the vast expanse of his desk. "Alexia, Alexia, Alexia. Keeps prattling on about her. What about the others? Catherine, Eleanor, Lydia?"

"Sir?" said Scott, feeling a strange kind of uneasiness settling in his gut. "Who?"

Eddy shook his head. "Nothing," he said, and he paused, puffing quietly on his pipe. He was staring at some point above Scott's head. "I didn't know them. But Alexander told me about them. It doesn't matter, however. They're gone."

"Sir—"

"Eddy, chap," corrected Eddy. "Goodness sake."

"Right, Eddy. Alexander ever mention the fact he'd asked my wife to mother Alexia?"

Eddy didn't say anything, regarding him with an unreadable look. Then, "Yes, he told me as much. Despicable. I do apologize profusely for my son, Scott. You know how Alexander is." He chewed on the stem of his pipe, a nervous habit. "Anyway, it was years ago," said Eddy. "Best not to worry about it, Scott." Eddy waved his hand dismissively, and he said, "It never happened. Move on. Other women, unfortunately."

"What?"

"People need money, Scott," said Eddy. "Some are willing to do whatever it takes for it."

"You're telling me Alexander had other women in on this insane project?"

"Well, yes," said Eddy, as though Scott should have already known that. "How else can you birth a child? A man certainly can't do it." He frowned, tilting his head. "A woman is a key component to the success of the project, Scott, as wild as this project is."

"He has no right."

"It's all voluntary, Scott. Alexander isn't forcing them. They sign up for it, because of the money."

Scott shook his head, deciding to change the subject. He noticed, then, that Eddy looked more tired than usual, almost threadbare. "You all right, Eddy? You look like shit," he said, removing books from the shelves and wiping down the bookcases. The books were all academic, related to Eddy's profession in virology.

"Some trouble with Spencer," said Edward, shaking his head, staring at Scott through a fug of pipe-smoke. "He's been acting a little funny, of late."

"Funny?" said Scott, putting the books back and organizing them, once he'd finished with the shelves. "How so?"

"Going on about wanting a larger stake in Umbrella. That he did all the bloody leg-work and deserves it," said Edward, sighing. "But who made the largest investment? I did, of course. I'm the majority holder in this corporation, Scott. Rubbish."

"That doesn't worry you?"

"Why would it?" said Eddy, finishing his pipe and carefully stowing it back inside its box, after he'd discarded the ash in the wastebin near his desk. "Oswell's an old friend, Scott. Good chap, once you get past the surly surface."

"What about Marcus?"

"What about Marcus?" said Eddy, shrugging. "He doesn't really speak to us." He started sorting through various stacks of papers and folders on his desk. "Well, doesn't really speak to _me_ , at least," he added, without looking up. "Not since Oswell and him closed the Umbrella deal."

"How's that going for you now, Eddy?"

Eddy looked up and grinned. "Roses, chap." He winked, and made an OK with his thumb and finger. "We're going to begin building immediately, transforming that spit of a town into something. Raccoon City. People are going to know that name, once we're through."

Scott nodded. "Just be careful around Spencer, okay?" He wasn't sure why, but the whole thing had him feeling pretty uneasy. Spencer had always come across as someone whose only interest was his own gain; and in a corporate climate, that was a recipe for disaster. "Just don't want anything happening to you, Eddy," he added. "The corporate world is cutthroat. Or so television would have me believe."

Eddy laughed. "Do yourself a favor and turn off the telly. It will turn your brain to rubbish, Scott."

Scott smiled. "Luckily, we don't get television out here."

"And that won't change, long as I'm around," said Eddy. "The world would be a better place without television, to be perfectly honest. People need to read more, Scott." He tapped his skull, adding, "Exercise the bloody brain God gave them."


	10. File 6 - I'm Lucky I Have You - Part 3

He'd put on the radio, one of the few modern luxuries they enjoyed in the Antarctica facility, and started cleaning to the sound of _Runaround Sue_. As he was dusting the coffee table in one of the drawing rooms, Scott started snapping his fingers and singing along to the song, falling into one of his head-fantasies of being a rock-and-roller. He'd do things like that a lot, around Alice especially, and she'd always thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Of course, Scott thought, a majority of those times he hadn't actually realized Alice had been watching until she'd caught him, mid-spin, in some awkward jive-dance, and then Scott would just laugh it off and tell her yeah, she'd caught him red-handed, and he wasn't sorry at all.

The Contours started singing _Do You Love Me_ , and now Scott was really getting into the swing of his little jive-dance, shuffling and spinning around the room as he wiped down various pieces of furniture, trying to, unsuccessfully, mash potato, like he'd seen Dee Dee Sharp's background dancers do on television. He was so into it, in fact, that he'd danced right into Edward, who was laughing at him, completely red in the face, tears in his eyes.

Scott's face burned. It was one thing for Alice to find him like that, but Edward Ashford seeing him like that, it was indescribably embarrassing. "Oh, God, Scott. I had no idea you did this sort of thing when you're by yourself." Eddy laughed for what had felt like an eternity; but eventually, the laughter tapered, and then went away entirely. "So you're a Motown man, I take it?" asked Edward, conversationally.

"Yeah," said Scott, his cheeks and ears still hot. "The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Supremes, Four Tops. Also like doo-wop."

Edward grinned. "I would never take you as the sort of man," he said.

"Well. Surprise," said Scott, meekly.

"Oh, don't be so embarrassed, Scott," said Edward, waving his hand dismissively. Scott noticed a bandage, then, on Eddy's finger. "I caught you dancing, not playing with your willy."

"I suppose," said Scott, clearing his throat. Then, "Your finger. What happened?"

Eddy looked at the bandage. "Ah," he said. "Nothing quite so exciting. One of the lab rats we use in testing bit me." He shook his head. "It's unusual, too," he added, frowning. "Bugger got me good. Took a nice chunk out of my finger, Scott, and wouldn't let go. I've never seen the damn things so aggressive. Had to kill it."

Scott frowned, feeling nervous, for some strange reason. He remembered Edward mentioning something about Spencer, and wondered if Spencer had tampered with the rats, maybe. But then, as he thought about it, it seemed awfully silly, required too much effort for a guy like Spencer. "You okay?" he asked. "Need to call the infirmary?"

"Scott, please, it was a little nip on the finger. I'm fine," said Edward, shaking his head. "Came here, actually, to tell you to cook dinner. I'm bloody starving. Wasting away." He patted his stomach and grinned. "Look at me, I'm a skeleton."

"Damn. Didn't realize it was that late already," said Scott, shaking his head. He slipped his dustcloth into the back pocket of his dress slacks, wiping his hands together. "Sure, I'll get right on dinner. Anything in particular you want, Eddy?"

"Most definitely that chicken thing you make, with the ham and cheese in it, and the white wine sauce," said Eddy, beaming.

"You sure you don't want some scotch eggs, maybe?" suggested Scott. "Steak and kidney pie?Could make some treacle tarts, too."

"You know what," said Eddy, snapping the fingers of his good hand. "Steak and kidney pie sounds good." He smiled. "Would be nice, I think. Like a taste of home. Mother used to make this wonderful steak and kidney pie—God rest her soul."

"All right, and I'll make some treacle tarts, too."

"Good, good," said Edward. "I'll go find Alexander, and let him know dinner will be ready soon."

Scott had finished with dinner. Now he set the tablecloth in the dining room, the antique china and silverware, and made rounds around the table, polishing any silver that looked a bit dull or spotty, and wiping out the wine-glasses. Then Scott went into the kitchen and brought out the food on large covered trays. He never sat until his employers sat before him, so he waited, making a few minor adjustments to his suit in the beveled glass of a Victorian mirror. Alexander was the first to show up, surlier than usual, and Scott, he felt a pang of anger seeing him now, knowing the things he'd asked Alice to do. Alexander sat down, and, without saying grace, started on his food. Eddy came in after Alexander, though Scott noticed Eddy looked a bit under the weather, pale as anything, and Scott wondered if maybe he'd eaten something bad.

Scott finally sat down. Eddy didn't even ask him to put on some music, which was unusual, because Eddy always liked to eat to the tune of the Ink Spots, or to Ella Fitzgerald. He'd said it had made the food taste better, that the music had reminded him of better, more carefree times. But now, Eddy just sat there in silence, picking at his steak and kidney pie.

"You all right, sir?"Around Alexander, who viewed unprofessionalism with the same scorn that the hippies viewed the war, Scott had learned to maintain his professionalism with Eddy. "You're looking a bit down."

"Just feeling a little green 'round the gills," mumbled Eddy, wiping at his face with a handkerchief. "Think I'm coming down with a fever." He sickly sniffed. "Probably all this dreadful cold, Scott," he remarked, somehow managing one of his usual smiles. "I really need to have the technicians look at the heaters."

"It's likely a cold father," commented Alexander, in his usual cool way. He regarded his father with a cold vacancy that reminded Scott of reptiles. "You really must stop being so dramatic," he chided, softly. "Go to the infirmary and get some medicine. Sleep it off."

Eddy nodded. "You know what, I think I will," he said, getting up. He gave Scott an apologetic look, and added, "I'm very sorry, Scott. You'd put together this dinner—"

"It's fine," said Scott, and meant it. "It'll be in the refrigerator, for later."

"Thank you, Scott. I was looking forward to that steak and kidney pie."

"No problem, sir," said Scott. "Now go ahead, get to the infirmary."

Edward nodded, and then he left. Alexander looked at him and said, "Scott. Father told me you'd spoken to Alice."

Scott was angry, hearing Alexander say that; it was something in his tone. But Scott did his best to appear indifferent, so Alexander couldn't see just how mad he was. Alexander liked doing things like this, probing people for chinks in their proverbial armor—and whenever he found those chinks, Alexander dug his fingers in deep. "I did, sir," he said evenly, beginning to collect the left-overs. Alice and the baby were relying on his wages. If Scott lost his job, he'd have to work for considerably less money someplace else, like a steel mill, or perhaps a factory. And if it came to litigation, if Scott hurt Alexander, Scott didn't have the kind of money to pay for the attorneys and various legal expenses he'd need. Eddy liked him, sure, but Scott was well aware that Ashfords, when it came down to it, stuck to each other.

"She told you about what I'd asked her," said Alexander.

Again, Scott felt that sharp pang of anger in his chest. "Yes," he said. "She did."

"I just want you to know it was before I'd learned of her pregnancy," he said, as though that was supposed to make Scott feel better about the whole thing.

"She's my _wife_ , sir," said Scott, through his teeth.

"I never planned to touch her, Scott," said Alexander, either choosing to ignore his anger, or honestly oblivious to it. "Insemination. Completely hands-off," he continued, sipping his wine. "I would have paid her for the trouble. Quite a lot, too."

"Why Alice?" said Scott.

"She's the physical type I'm looking for," explained Alexander, as though he was speaking to a small, angry child. "You see, the egg used in the cloning process would be her own. That means, the child would share her DNA. My DNA, and my ancestor Veronica's, would be introduced to the egg through artificial means."

Scott felt a sudden, desperate urge to punch Alexander, right in the nose. But he managed not to. "Physical type?" he said. Even though Scott was pissed off, some small part of him wanted to hear Alexander out.

Alexander nodded, started counting off on his fingers. "She's English," he said. "My preference is to keep the mother English, you see. Matter of national pride, I suppose, and Veronica herself was English, of course. Alice is caucasian, like Veronica, and actually looks a great deal like her, if you look at the portraits. Your wife's blood-work also shows no history of serious disease in her family. Still, I've found other women who fit the criteria, so you needn't worry, Scott. Alice made it quite clear she wanted no part of it."

"Thank you, sir," he said, somewhat sure this was Alexander's way of apologizing. "I think."

"Yes, well, you're welcome," said Alexander, frowning. He stood, started toward the door. "Dinner was delicious," he added. "Thank you, Scott." Then he was gone.

Scott shook his head, and started cleaning up.


	11. File 6 - I'm Lucky I Have You - Part 4

Edward had become somewhat scarce, since that night at dinner. On the rare occasions Scott did see Edward, he noticed the life had seemed gone from him, that he'd been reduced to some pale, sickly husk. Whenever he'd inquired about it, Edward assured him it was just a passing flu, and that he'd be right as rain in a few days. Scott had attempted to contact the infirmary doctor about Edward's condition, but had been met with silence, and several apologies from the attending nurses that the doctor, right now, was busy, and that he'd been in touch, they assured him, as soon as his business had concluded.

Scott called Alice and told her about it, after his shift. "I don't know what's going on," he said to her, sitting at his writing desk, idly tapping the keys on his typewriter, or fiddling with the accordioned phone cord, or the plastic dial-wheel, just so his hands had something to do. He'd been a worried wreck, since Edward had fallen ill. "He's been getting paler and paler, Alice. Complaining about his skin itching. I don't know what's ailing him, just that it's bad. Eddy says it's a flu, but I'm not so sure, and the eggheads have been perfectly silent on the matter, down in the labs..."

He heard Alice sigh on the other end, the sound coming across the line as a burst of fuzz. "That isn't good. Nobody has any idea what's happened to Edward?" Scott told her no, and she sighed again. "I'm sure it's nothing, Scott," said Alice, although she didn't sound entirely convinced of that. He heard the concern in Alice's voice; like him, she'd always been fond of Eddy, regarded him as family. "You're in Antarctica, and that facility does get awfully drafty," she continued, and her tone took on a certain urgent quality now, as though she was trying to convince herself that Eddy was, in fact, fine. "He probably caught something, working himself to death like he does, Scott. I keep telling him that, at his age, he ought to be taking it easier. But you know Edward, he won't hear any of that rubbish."

 _Tap, tap, tap_. The typewriter dinged, and Scott pushed the empty platen back into place. "I know. He's stubborn as a mule," said Scott, frowning, staring at the wooden crucifix mounted on his wall.

"I worry what will happen, should the worst come to pass," said Alice, apprehensively. He could see her face, then, how that little crease in her forehead would appear whenever she frowned. "Alexander frightens me," she continued. "Should Edward pass away, Alexander will become the next head of the Ashford family, Scott. I can only wonder what that would mean for you, for us." Alice paused. "Alexander and you have never quite gotten along," she added, and that was a severe understatement, he thought. Scott disliked Alexander immensely, even before he'd found out about the Alice business; but he'd always bitten his tongue, in fear of losing his job. "And Lord knows, I don't get along with him either, Scott."

"He's a sourpuss," said Scott, shaking his head. He tapped at his typewriter, and the platen dinged again; he pushed it back into place. "Yeah, it crossed my mine, too, Alice." Scott covered his mouth, fingernails scratching at his cheek. He felt stubble there, and mentally noted to shave in the morning. "Goodness, I don't know what to fucking do, Alice. Pardon my French. I'm hoping Eddy pulls out of it. I mean, he's a tough guy. He was in the war, wasn't he? Survived France during Nazi occupation. And he's filthy rich. He can buy the right doctors."

"We should think about plan B, Scott, should the worst happen. For the baby," said Alice, cautiously. "I pray Edward pulls out of it, but at his age? And with that terrible smoking habit of his... I don't know. I'm worried, Scott, I suppose."

"Don't be, Alice. We'll figure it out. We always do." Scott smiled. "I think Eddy'll be fine, and we're just being worrywarts."

"I hope you're right, Scott," she said, and he detected a smile in her voice. "I should go, however. Feeling a bit tired. I love you."

"All right. I should sleep, anyway. I love you, too, Alice." Scott heard her chuckle on the other end, and then the line clicked, dial-tone droning in his ear. He put the handset back on the cradle, and went to bed.

The next morning, Scott had been in the middle of vaccuuming the hallway outside Edward's room when Edward burst through the door, in nothing more than a velvet silk robe and pinstriped pajamas, a ring of sweat around his neck. "Scott," he said shakily, beckoning him inside the room. "Come here, come here." His entire face was slick with fever-sweat, and Scott instantly turned the vaccuum off and followed Edward inside. "Oh, God, I can't believe this," he heard Edward mumble, leading him to the small marble bathroom beside his bed. Edward paused in front of the sink, and in the lights of the bathroom, Edward looked dead and gray. "Here," he said, and pointed at the sink.

Scott looked, gagging. There was a piece of dead skin, the size of a quarter, at the bottom of the sink. It was tinged a blackish color, as though necrosis had started to settle into the tissue. "What the hell happened, Eddy?" he asked, looking at him. "This came off of _you_?"

Edward rolled up the sleeve of his robe and showed him his arm. On his pale forearm, there was a quarter-sized hole, the flesh a wet raw color. "I was coming in here to brush my teeth," explained Edward. "And my arm, it started itching mercilessly. So naturally, I itched it." His arm, Scott noticed now, was slightly swollen, too. "Piece came off." Edward looked at Scott, then, and Scott could see the quiet panic in Edward's pale blue eyes. The skin under his eyes was an unhealthy brown, probably from a lack of sleep. "Scott, the doctors down in the infirmary can't seem to bloody figure out what's wrong with me. But I know it's rubbish." His tone was somewhat frenzied, maniacal. "I know what happened. Spencer. He sabotaged my laboratory, Scott. Infected the rats with the progenitor strain, and the bugger, it bit me." Edward grabbed his shoulders suddenly, his fingers digging uncomfortably into the fabric of his blazer, and his voice shot up an octave, tinged with borderline hysteria. "You see what I'm saying, chap? Don't you? Don't you see? Spencer, he infected me."

"Eddy, calm down," said Scott, gently pushing Edward away from him. "Spencer did what? Infected you? With what?"

"Chap, don't you understand what Umbrella is?" said Edward, and though he seemed to settle down some, there was still a certain shade of delirium in his voice. "It's a bloody front for illegal bio-experimentation, Scott. We create bioweapons. A new kind of weapon, more powerful and devastating than the bombs dropped on fucking Japan. The progenitor strain." Edward shook his head. "I'll be _damned_ if I'm going to die without outing Oswell and James for the bloody snakes that they are," he hissed, through his teeth. "That's why I'm telling you this, Scott. I trust you. I want you to tell people. I want it known that Umbrella is a bloody _fucking_ lie. That it wants nothing more than to capitalize on warfare, under the guise of helping the _very people_ whose misery it seeks to profit from."

"Edward. Eddy. You're delirious," said Scott, shaking his head. "You need to sleep. I'll go get the doctors."

"The doctors are in Oswell's and James's bloody pockets! They won't help me," said Edward. "You are the only person I can trust now, Scott. I can't even trust Alexander. Oswell, he's poisoned my son with these grandiose promises of fame and recognition. That the Ashfords can be redeemed, restored to our bloody pedestal."

"Code: Veronica."

"Alexander's 'ticket to fame'," said Edward, frowning. "Oswell put him up to it, I'm sure. But that isn't important right now, Scott. I have something to ask of you, chap. Something very important."

"Anything, Eddy. Name it."

"When I turn, you have to kill me," said Edward, and the demand made Scott's blood run cold. "You have to shoot me in the head, lad. I keep the Webley in my desk, here in the room. My service pistol from the war."

"Eddy, you're just damned delirious from the flu—whatever it is. It's making you crazy."

"You have to shoot me. Promise," said Edward, staring hard at him.

"I can't make promises like that, Eddy," said Scott. "That's murder. I'm not a murderer."

"You won't have a choice, when I turn," said Edward, cryptically.

"Eddy..."

"You also must promise me one more thing," said Edward, ignoring his concern and stepping closer, putting his hands on Scott's shoulders in a reassuring way. There were faint varicose veins on the backs of Edward's hands, the skin heavily wrinkled around the joints. "You mustn't tell a soul about my condition," he said measuredly. "I need time to expose Oswell, get to the bottom of things. Leave you _something_ to bring to the authorities."

"Eddy, you're sick. I have to tell someone." He'd already mentioned it to Alice, but he didn't tell Eddy that.

"Don't," said Edward, shaking his head. "Oswell has likely heard something about it by now from the infirmary. But he's likely probing still, if I know him well enough. And I do. He likes to be absolutely thorough. Should Oswell find out for certain of my condition, he's going to cut my time shorter than it already is, Scott. I, perhaps, have a few more days left—a week if I'm lucky. I need to make them count."

"You're talking crazy, Eddy. Please, go to bed. You'll be fine."

"I started writing a memoir, last I'd visited Spencer's American estate," said Edward. "I hid it there. You need to get there, somehow, and get it. It has everything you'll need to know in it. Everything the people will need to know."

"Eddy, I can't just walk into Spencer's house."

"You must do this, Scott. I'm counting on you," said Edward.

"Eddy," began Scott, carefully guiding him back into the bedroom, and into his bed, "you need to sleep. So sleep. I'll be back to check on you in a few hours. Make sure you have everything you need."

"Scott, you aren't listening to a _damned_ thing I'm saying!"

"Because what you're saying is insane, the stuff of pulp fiction," argued Scott.

"It isn't fiction, Scott. It's real."

"Just get some sleep, Eddy," said Scott, heading out of the room. "Please. For goodness sake."


	12. File 6 - I'm Lucky I Have You - End

Scott couldn't stop thinking about what Edward had said. A few days had passed, and Edward's condition had started to rapidly deteriorate, and Scott thought about the Webley in the desk. _You have to shoot me in the head, lad_ , something with Edward's voice said. _I keep the Webley in my desk, here in the room_. Eddy had barely spoken since then, and he slept most of the time, so peacefully now that Scott had mistakenly thought he'd passed on, on several occasions.

Scott knew it wouldn't be long now, that Eddy would die soon, and thinking about it, it made him feel nauseous and sad. He wondered if Spencer had really done this to Eddy, if he'd planned to kill him all along. Pehaps Spencer had just been biding his time, until an opportunity had presented itself. Scott had asked the eggheads about the progenitor, but they'd stayed awfully tight-lipped about it, and he'd observed a certain guiltiness, an I-know-I-did-wrongness, on their faces.

His eyes drifted to the desk, where Edward kept the Webley. And internally, Scott cursed himself for even entertaining the thought.

"Scott," came Eddy's voice, soft and so unlike himself, as if crackling over an analog wave. The swelling on his arms and legs had worsened, blisters periodically erupting and sloughing off the pieces of necrotic skin. "Get the pistol." His eyes were foggy with cataracts now, and Scott wondered if it was better that way, that if he shot Eddy, Eddy would never have to see it coming. "Please," he rasped, his cold, dead hands finding Scott's warm, living ones. "Get the bloody pistol, and put me out of my misery. Before I turn."

"Eddy—"

"You know I'm not going to make it, Scott," said Eddy, and he was right. "Please."

Scott slid off the bed and walked over to the desk. His palms were sweating, his hands shaking. He couldn't believe he was doing this, that he was reaching for the Webley in the top drawer. He stared at the cheap little service pistol in his hand, and found it was loaded. Eddy had been anticipating this, since that day.

"I tried—" Eddy gasped, his chest heaving, and then he settled back on the mattress, practically inert. "I tried to compile what I could to sink Oswell," he continued, in a threadbare voice. "It's in—it's in the pages of the Epicurus book, in my office."

"Epicurus? You always did have a sense of humor, Eddy," said Scott, wanting to cry, hot tears edging his vision.

"'Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist'," quoted Eddy, in that dying voice, "'death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.'"

"You're taking this all in stride, as expected," said Scott, turning to the bed, his fingers around the grip of the Webley, his hand still shaking.

"What difference is there between the time of non-existence before our births," said Eddy, his head lolling on the sweat-soaked pillow, "and the time of non-existence after our deaths? Why concern ourselves with it."

Scott came to the bed and pointed the gun at Eddy's head, right between the eyes, remembering Vietnam, and how he'd shot other men in similar fashion. But he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. The gun shook in his hand.

"Scott," said Eddy, his milky eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. "Before you kill me, I've one of two requests."

"Anything, Eddy."

"My first request: could you put the record on, over there on the record-player?" Eddy smiled. "I love that song."

Scott nodded, although Eddy couldn't see him anymore, and he went to the record-player. He put the needle on the record and turned the player on. Bill Kenny's voice came crackling out, crooning _I'm Lucky I Have You_. "Do you really need to make this hard?" asked Scott, listening to the song. "Couldn't just... die in silence, could you?" Scott managed a smile, somehow, and he laughed, though it came out as an awkward chuckle.

"I'm always overdramatic. You know that, Scott," rasped Eddy. "My second request is quite simple. Get the journal from my office, in the Epicurus book, and retrieve my memoir from the Spencer estate—before Oswell has a chance to destroy it."

"I'll do what I can," said Scott, because he couldn't promise something like that. And there was something markedly rotten, he decided, about lying to a dying man. "That's all I can promise, Eddy."

Eddy didn't answer this time.

Scott approached the bed, and Eddy was lying there, perfectly inert, like some kind of wax doll. He checked for a pulse and found Eddy didn't have one; his skin was cold and dead to the touch. Although Scott knew, with bitter certainty, that Eddy's ghost had flown, he felt a certain obligation to be absolutely sure of that, and he held a small hand-mirror to Eddy's mouth, seeing no fog. Dead. Part of him was happy he hadn't needed to shoot Eddy; the other part was upset, upset because Eddy was dead now, and he'd suffered in those last moments.

Scott wiped the tears from his eyes and pulled the comforter over Eddy's head, because it just seemed like the proper, respectful thing to do, gave him some kind of dignity. He'd need to tell Alexander that his father had passed on, and then he'd need to make the funeral arrangements, which would be a headache and a half, Scott was sure, because the other Ashfords—Stanley, and the rest of them—would be circling like vultures now, waiting to swoop in and assume the position of family head. Though their efforts would be in vain, because Eddy had already named Alexander as the successor; still, it wouldn't stop them from trying, and possibly litigating the matter.

Scott turned toward the door, but heard something move behind him, a rustling noise. Scott looked over his shoulder, saw Eddy sitting upright in the bed, still covered by the blanket. "Eddy?" he said, boggling.

An inhuman moaning came from under the blanket, and the comforter slid down, revealed Eddy's dead gray face, his eyes like milky pearls. Pieces of his skin sloughed away from his face and left irregular wet ulcers there, the skin around them tinged black from necrosis. "Eddy?" said Scott again, shuffling backward, his hand tightening around the grip of the Webley. He could barely hear himself now, over the blood throbbing in his ears.

Eddy staggered out of the bed, dragging his right foot behind him. Scott heard a loud snap, and the foot he'd been dragging was bent awkwardly now, like a club foot. Eddy didn't even notice, kept shuffling toward him, his arms outstretched, his fingers groping stupidly at the air. Eddy moaned again, his mouth hanging open, saliva dripping in thin ropes from his lips.

Scott pointed the gun at Eddy and told him not to come closer, or he'd shoot. Eddy didn't listen. Reflexively, Scott shot him in the shin, hoping to slow him down. Eddy crumpled, dragging himself on the ground now, trailing blood on the floorboards. He grabbed Scott's ankle and tried to bite him, and it was then that Scott understood it wasn't Eddy anymore—it was something else.

Without thinking, Scott shot Eddy in the head, part of his skull dissolving into a spray of blood. Eddy let out an unsettling death gurgle, and then he stopped moving altogether, twitching on the floorboards in a series of violent post-mortem spasms.

"God, forgive me," he said, looking skyward. "Eddy, please. Forgive me." Some of Eddy's blood had stained the lapels of his blazer, and part of his jaw, and Scott felt nauseous and tired now, wanting nothing more than to vomit, and then to sleep.

The door creaked open. Alexander stood there, observing the grisly scene with perfect neutrality. "You killed my father," he said conversationally, regarding Eddy's corpse with a clinical detachment that made Scott's skin crawl. "After all he did for you, Scott." He tuttedd and shook his head. Alexander looked at him, hands in the pockets of his pants. He wore a dark suit, and a blood-red paisley silk tie with a pin worked in the shape of the Ashford emblem. The designs on the tie reminded Scott of blood cells under a microscope. "You do realize I'll have to report this," he said, smiling emptily.

"I didn't murder him," said Scott, tossing the Webley aside. It clattered away, into the dark of the room. "He attacked me. He was going to bite me. He was already _dead_ , Alexander."

"Of course," said Alexander, ignoring him, "we could strike a deal."

"A deal?"

"My silence for your utter submission," said Alexander, his smile carrying a certain sharpness that made Scott think of a knife. "Your son, or your daughter, when they are born, will also submit to my family. I want to keep you firmly under my control, so you can never talk about what you've seen here." His tone took on a cold, smooth edge then, and Alexander said, "You'll take a massive pay-cut as well—that money could be put toward more useful things, you see, such as my research—and you will do everything I tell you to do, including—" Alexander put his hand on Scott's shoulder and squeezed—"telling me what interesting things father undoubtedly told you."

"He didn't tell me anything," lied Scott. "You're asking me to become your slave, Alexander."

"The Ashfords are among the world's first and finest," said Alexander, still smiling. "You should consider yourself lucky, to be able to devote your life to us, Scott."

"You are a fucking monster, Alexander," said Scott.

Alexander ignored him again, and said, "You will also, among other things, turn a blind eye to everything you see within this company. Should you tell anyone, well, it would be unfortunate if something happened to Alice and your child, wouldn't it?"

"You son of a bitch," said Scott, through his teeth. "You can do whatever you want to me. But Alice and the baby? They have nothing to do with this, Alexander. Keep them out of this."

"They might not have anything to do with this," said Alexander, "but they certainly make good leverage. Now. What things did father tell you?"

"Nothing. He told me nothing."

Alexander suddenly punched him, hard, in the nose, and Scott stumbled back, right onto Edward's corpse. His nose bled profusely, trickling over his upper-lip and dripping onto the floorboards. "I'll give you the night to think about it," said Alexander smoothly. "But tomorrow? We're going to have a nice, long chat."

Fifteen years later, standing now at Alice's grave in New Jersey, thirteen-year-old Alexia at his side, Scott never did tell anyone what Edward had told him back then. Shortly after Edward's passing, Alice had passed too, and to some degree, Scott suspected Alexander had killed her, not birth complications. So when he'd overheard Alexia and her twin brother Alfred discussing how they'd killed Alexander, Scott hadn't cared, and some part of him had actually been relieved that Alexander had been murdered. He knew that wasn't the Christian thing to think, of course, and often, he begged God to forgive him for those terrible thoughts; but Alexander had been evil, had deserved what had happened to him.

He placed the flowers on Alice's grave—white lilies and forget-me-nots, her favorites—and said a silent prayer. Alexia hadn't spoken the whole time. She'd been staring at the engraving on the marble headstone:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF ALICE HARMAN 1935-1969

LOVING WIFE AND MOTHER

"I didn't think, to be honest, I would feel much of anything when you'd said we were visiting your wife's grave," said Alexia suddenly, still staring at the headstone, rain pattering gently around them.

He'd never told Alexia much about Alice, but now, Scott wanted to. He shifted the umbrella a little, so Alexia wouldn't get wet. "It's understandable. You didn't know her, kiddo," he said, kneeling on the space of grass in front of the stone, still holding the umbrella high over Alexia's head, because he didn't want his little girl to get sick. "Wish I could have bought her a better stone. It's better than the cheap one she'd had before, at least."

"Alfred and I could only funnel so much, else father became wise to it." Alexia wore a conservative black cardigan, and a dress with faded blue floral print. Her family jewel, a ruby, was fixed to her collar. "He was already starting to get suspicious," she added.

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful, kiddo," said Scott, and he meant it. He stood, then leaned down and kissed the top of Alexia's head. In 1968, Scott had sworn he could never love children like Alexia and Alfred, whose births had seemed somehow less legitimate to him then because they'd been clones. But since their births, since the day Scott had held Alexia and Alfred as tiny crying infants in the Antarctica infirmary, he'd loved them like his own.

Alexia extended her hand, and Scott held it, smiling. He always found it funny, how small Alexia was compared to him, like she was a doll. She was tall for her age, around 5'6 or so when he'd last checked, but she still seemed so tiny and frail, like if he jostled her too hard, she'd shatter like brittle porcelain. "How come Grayson didn't come?" asked Alexia, looking up at him.

"He gets weird around his mom's grave," he said, feeling wet wind lick his cheek. "I don't know. I think, on some level, Grayson blames himself. The official story is Alice died from an infection, birth complications."

Alexia nodded. "I understand, even if I think it's silly he blames himself." She paused. "How come you didn't bring Alfred?" She looked up at him, her eyes the same pale blue color that Alice's had been, although they were not Alice's eyes.

"Some things I wanted to tell you. Only you," said Scott.

Alexia watched him expectantly.

"Alice, you know she'd almost been your mother?"

Alexia stared at him. "Grayson and I, you mean to say," she said, making a face, "could have been _half-siblings_?"

"It never happened. Relax," he assured her, ruffling her pale hair. Her hair, and Alfred's hair, was something else, Scott decided, a blond that hadn't existed since Jean Harlow; and it killed him, because it was their natural color. It seemed synthetic, like a color that should have only existed as a dye. "If you were his half-sister," he said, "I would have never let you two get as close as you have, Alexia. I would've nipped that in the bud, day one."

"Thank God," she said. Then, "Did you ever meet my mother?" Alexia looked searchingly at him. "I can scarcely remember if I'd asked you this before, Scott," she added, apologetically.

Scott shook his head. "No. When they delivered you and Alfred, the mother had been taken to a recovery room, and you both were left in the nursery," he explained, remembering Alfred and Alexia in their glass cradles, tiny pink things wriggling restlessly under their blankets. "She was never meant to be part of your life, I suppose. Just a means of bringing you into the world." Scott smiled apologetically, and said, "Sorry if that's not the answer you'd wanted to hear, kiddo."

"It's the answer I expected, I suppose," said Alexia, shrugging. "I suppose father wasn't there either. In the nursery, I mean."

Scott shook his head, frowning. "No, I'm sorry."

"It's fine," said Alexia, without looking at him. "You were there."

"I was the first person to hold you both," he said proudly. "You both were the cutest babies. Peach-fuzz for hair, and these big blue eyes." Scott grinned, playfully elbowing her. " _You_ liked to spit up on me, as a baby. It's like you'd wait until I'd, specifically, pick you up—and then you'd just let it all out, all over my shirt."

Alexia giggled. "What about Alfred? Or Grayson?"

"Grayson had a horrible habit of peeing on me all the time," said Scott, laughing. His first introduction to Grayson, in fact, a few weeks before Alice's death, had been in an Atlantic City hospital, when Grayson had peed on one of his best shirts. "Alfred? He was actually a pretty clean, well-behaved baby. He cried a lot, but that's about it."

"Why am I not surprised by either of those things," said Alexia, smiling.

Scott was suddenly reminded of something, then, that he'd read in Edward's journal, the one he'd hidden in the Epicurus book. "You did have a grandfather that loved you, however," said Scott, smiling warmly at her. "Edward wanted me to tell you that. That you'd had a grandfather that loved you."


	13. File 11 - Unraveling - Part 1

**Unraveling**

 _Raccoon City, 1992_

They were walking down Ennerdale Street, and it was a warm day in Raccoon City, and Grayson decided, because the quiet had become awkward, to make conversation. "You hear about Bright Raccoon 21?" he asked Alfred, who didn't answer him, and who, among the predominantly working-class crowds of Ennerdale, sorely stood out in his yuppie Ralph Lauren suit and sunglasses. "Some kind of gentrification project, or something. They're building a giant hospital, and doing something to the Municipal building. Clancy told me about it." Grayson dug into his pocket and came up with the battered packet of Lucky Strikes, lighting one with the disposable BIC he'd bought, a block ago, at the 7-11. He offered a cigarette to Alfred, but Alfred declined. "You all right, buddy?" he asked, concerned.

"Tired," said Alfred, but he was always tired because of the meds. "I'll be all right."

Grayson pocketed the lighter, and the cigarettes, and he blew a cloud of smoke away from them, in the direction of the street. "You brought your pills, right?" he asked.

"I did."

"Good," said Grayson, and he draped an arm across Alfred's broad, tapered shoulders. "'Cause I'm worried about you, buddy." Alfred was twenty-one, but looked as if he could have been sixteen. He was tall, and built real lean, and his hair and eyes were so pale they might have been white. "So when are you meeting Spencer?" he asked. "And what about?"

In the sunlight now, Alfred looked translucent, his hair burning in a platinum aura. "He wants to offer me a job, after I graduate university." He smiled, but it was a smile without meaning. "I suppose he wants to talk details."

"Administrative?"

Alfred nodded. "I'm not a scientist. You know that, I know that, Spencer knows that, my sister bloody knew that." At the mention of his sister, Alfred frowned, staring vacantly in the middle-distance.

Grayson awkwardly squeezed Alfred's shoulder. "I miss her too, man," he said, and he finished his cigarette, flicking the butt into the gutter. Grayson shifted the subject and said, "You gonna run the prison?"

"Not so loud," said Alfred, scowling at him. Then he lowered his voice to practically a whisper and said, "But yes, I am, I think. My military training makes me uniquely suited for Umbrella's paramilitary division."

"I'm envious. You're almost done with college. Even if I like my college," said Grayson.

"If you'd worked a little harder, you'd be nearly done too, I bet," said Alfred.

"Nah. You got that intelligence gene, or whatever. That thing Alexander found." He tracked a pretty red head walking by, but lost sight of her in the crowd. Alfred scowled at him in his periphery, and Grayson said, "I'm just looking, man. Relax."

"If my sister—"

"If your sister was here," said Grayson, and he frowned, something sad and heavy settling in his stomach, "I wouldn't be looking."

They arrived at Umbrella's headquarters and pushed through the revolving door, trimmed in gold, the beveled glass panels cast in the design of the Umbrella Corporation's logo. Grayson followed Alfred to the front desk, where an attractive blonde woman, who looked a bit like Alexia from certain angles, greeted Alfred with a dazzlingly white smile, and asked, very politely, how she could help him. Alfred smiled like a Disney prince, and he gave the woman his name, and informed her, purposefully manicuring his accent to sound more cultured and Shakespearean than it actually was, that he had an appointment with Oswell Spencer.

Grayson left Alfred to his business, wandering to the center of the marble lobby and staring at the large fiberglass Umbrella logo, the company motto PRESERVING THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE spelled out in stylized font. Somewhere he heard _King of Wishful Thinking_ , and he thought about Alexia.

Alfred came over, and he had a piece of notebook paper in his hand. "Seems I have a date tonight," he said, smiling like a shoujo boy.

"Look at you, Casanova," said Grayson, grinning.

"The accent, Grayson. American women bloody love a British accent," said Alfred sagely, pocketing the piece of notebook paper. "Going to take her out for dinner, I suppose, and bring her back to the hotel. So don't come back tonight."

"No worries, man," said Grayson, laughing. "I don't want to watch that show. Besides, gonna meet Clancy and some of his buddies at Larry Malone's, so if you wind up kicking this woman out like the last one, you should come down and hang out."

"I'll keep it in mind," said Alfred, and he glanced at the Rolex on his wrist, the one Grayson had bought him for his twenty-first birthday. "I have to go meet Spencer. There's a kiosk—" Alfred gestured at a small kiosk across the lobby, where a bored-looking man in a pinstriped apron was wiping things down—"that sells coffee and snacks, if it takes longer than I expect it to."

"No problem," said Grayson, and he smoothed Alfred's hair back, and then gave him a thumbs-up. "You look great. Go get 'em, tiger." Alfred chuckled, and Grayson watched him walk away and vanish inside the elevator.

He went to the kiosk and bought himself a black coffee, and a small bag of chips, and he sat in one of the sitting areas, leather couches and chairs arranged around low glass tables on squares of geometric carpet, and he busied himself with the magazines and books spread out on the tables, and occasionally, he would engage in small-talk.

He'd finished his coffee and chips, and was halfway through last year's issue of the _Chicago Review_ when Alfred appeared, and he was smiling. "He's going to give me Rockfort," he announced, although Grayson had already expected that. "Spencer wants me to reform the paramilitary training program," he said, triumphantly. "I'll be devising an entirely new curriculum for the U.S.S."

"That's great," said Grayson, beaming. He put the magazine down and stood, and he shook Alfred's hand. "On your way up, buddy," he said, laughing. "Should come out to Larry Malone's after your date, man. Celebrate this." He paused, suddenly remembering something, and he said, "Your date. Remember to take your pills, yeah?"

Alfred frowned and said, "I'll be fine."

"Sure," said Grayson, although he didn't entirely believe him. "You'll be okay, kid."

Later that night, at a quarter to ten o'clock, Grayson met Clancy at Larry Malone's. Clancy hadn't changed much since Grayson had last seen him; he still looked like someone who might have tried out for The Ramones at one point, but had been rejected. "Hey, man," said Clancy, grinning and shaking his hand. Clancy was wearing his '89 Rolling Stones tour shirt, from their Atlantic City gig, and his jeans were worn thin around the knees. He'd gotten a new tattoo, Grayson noticed, on his arm: Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat. "How's things going?" he asked. "Haven't seen you in goddamn months."

Clancy's girlfriend Katie was there, and she grinned at him from the bar, waving. He waved back, then said to Clancy, "It's been going, dude. Columbia's great. Two more years to go, man, just about. Even got some shit published, finally. Couple of poems I'd written."

"Maybe you could recite 'em, huh?" said Clancy, flashing his crooked smile and throwing an arm around Katie. His nose was slightly bent, as though he'd broken it at some point, and it had healed that way. The bar was noisy, and Grayson saw several unfamiliar faces, and in the lurid neon glow, they looked haunted.

"I'm here to drink, buddy. I'm not here for a poetry slam," said Grayson, laughing. He went to the bar and ordered himself a beer, and a blonde girl smiled at him, gave him that look which said she wanted to talk, but she didn't want to be the one to initiate the conversation. Grayson pretended not to notice her, and he told the bartender to open a tab. He'd certainly dated girls since Alexia had died, but they'd never managed to maintain his interest for very long. Alfred also made it pretty difficult; he gave him hell, every time he found a girl to keep him company. "So how's the RPD?" asked Grayson, raising his voice over the jukebox noise of _Word Up_. "You get anywhere with it yet, Clancy?"

"Yeah," said Clancy, grinning wider. "Just graduated the Academy. Start next week. I have to get a haircut and shit."

Grayson opened his mouth to answer him, but stopped, seeing a familiar face in his periphery. Alfred was still dressed in his Ralph Lauren suit, but he looked strange, Grayson decided, like he'd just gone through something. "One sec, Clancy," he said, and he went over to Alfred. "You're early. Things not work out with the hot receptionist?"

"We had sex," said Alfred candidly, and he shrugged.

 _Shit_ , Grayson thought. "Alfred, don't tell me," and he glanced back at Clancy, who wasn't paying any attention at all to them. "Don't fucking tell me you hurt her," he said, scowling.

"Other than some bruising around her throat, she's fine," said Alfred.

"You tried to strangle—" and then it dawned on him, and he said, "You're into weird shit, Alfred."

"She asked," said Alfred conversationally, shrugging and walking past him, toward the bar. He watched Alfred buy a whiskey shot, and smoothly down it. Grayson stood beside him, and the blonde girl from before was smiling at Alfred now, twirling hair around her finger. Alfred looked at the girl, but his expression was unreadable.

"Dude, you just got laid, and you're already gunning for another?" said Grayson.

"Might as well enjoy it while I can," said Alfred, adjusting his tie and smiling pointlessly. "I'm a little put out on men; that's all there is at Sandhurst."

"Man, you're incorrigible," remarked Grayson.

The girl was still smiling at Alfred, doing that hair-twirl thing, and it was beginning to annoy Grayson. Thankfully, Clarence came over, and he said, "Jesus Christ. She had a twin?"

Grayson said to Clarence, a warning in his voice, "Don't. Clancy, don't."

Alfred stared with the kind of quiet rage endemic to the intensely psychopathic.

"Sorry, I didn't mean nothing by it," said Clarence, and he extended his hand to Alfred. "My bad, man. Name's Clarence Dunn."

"I know who you are," said Alfred coldly, and he shook Clancy's hand. "Alfred. And yes, Alexia did have a twin."

Clancy must have been picking up on Alfred's Jeffrey Dahmer vibe, and he quickly stepped back and smiled apologetically. Grayson had never seen Clancy look so nervous. "Grayson's talked about you," he said, probably trying to smooth things over. "All good things. He says you're his brother."

"I am," said Alfred, matter-of-factly. "My family never formally adopted Grayson, but he's been with us his entire life. He's earned the right to be an Ashford."

"Honorary," said Grayson, wanting to make that clear. Then, "But shucks, Alfred."

"Grayson mentioned that. His dad's your butler or something, right?"

"Indeed," said Alfred. "Scott was initially employed by my grandfather, and he has faithfully served my family since."

"Right," said Clancy, awkwardly. Then he said, "You make it sound like they're your fucking slaves, Alfred."

"A slave isn't paid for their services," said Alfred. "They are servants, and as servants, they are free to leave our service whenever they wish to."

"But we don't want to," said Grayson, smiling. "I know Alfred makes it sound like we're slaves, Clancy, but it's not like that at all. The Ashfords are really good to us. Alfred pays my dad well, and he gives him benefits. Even offered my old man a pension, but my dad, he's stubborn and doesn't want to retire just yet."

"Even though he should, with his heart issues," said Alfred, frowning.

"Yeah, well, you know dad," said Grayson, chuckling. Then, to Clancy, "And Alfred, he's paying for my education." He grinned. "I got a good job secured for myself, once my old man retires. Second generation butler."

Clancy whistled, and he said to Alfred, "You looking to hire a second butler, maybe? Sounds like a sweet deal." It was a joke, and Grayson knew that, but Alfred was staring at Clancy like he had two heads.

"Given you look like someone who walked out of a bloody Nirvana video, no," said Alfred. "I'm not."

"It was a joke, man. Don't gotta be an asshole," said Clancy. Then he said to Grayson, "Does 'being a dick' run in the family? He's just like Alexia."

Alfred tensed, and he was staring murder at Clancy.

"Clancy, maybe you should walk," said Grayson, gently nudging him away. He leaned closer, and said in Clancy's ear, "Alfred's got a short fuse like Alexia. Except he's a lot meaner."

Clancy nodded, a bit apprehensively. "Right. I'm getting those vibes," he said, and he walked away with Katie, glancing once over his shoulder at them, and then disappearing up a set of red-painted chipboard stairs.


	14. File 11 - Unraveling - Part 2

Grayson turned around to talk to Alfred, but Alfred was already chatting with the blonde girl who'd been eyeballing him, and he was smiling like a smug asshole who knew he was a smug asshole, but also knew he was a smug asshole who could charm the pants off an ascetic. Grayson decided he'd leave Alfred to his chat, it wasn't like they were alone in the bar anyway. Besides, he thought, heading toward the stairs, Alfred hadn't killed anyone since Alexander. Even so, Grayson did worry about his precarious mental state; he'd been exhibiting some troubling signs...

He gently bumped his way through the upstairs bar, past smoky neon signs, and outside onto the tiki deck. It occurred to Grayson that Larry Malone's really had no cohesive theme: downstairs was Miami Vice, and upstairs was an uneasy mix of Roadhouse and Polynesian kitsch.

He found Clarence on the deck, sitting at a tiny round table patinaed in thumbprints and cigarette burns, on a peeling polyester stool. "Your friend," began Clarence, with a sagely air, "is a fucking dick, man."

"He gives me the creeps," said Katie, sipping her alcopop. Up close, she was pretty, and, Grayson decided, looked a bit like Dolores O'Riordan. "You have weird friends, Grayson."

Grayson dragged a stool over from another table and sat down. It was warm outside, and Grayson imagined he could feel rain on the air. "He's not so bad when you get to know him," he said, feeling like a protective older brother. Alfred was an asshole, sure, but Grayson liked him, and Alfred had been nothing but good to him. Alexander, he'd deserved what he'd gotten. "Just gotta get to know him, you know?"

"He's a stuck up asshole. Thinks he's better than everyone 'cause of his fancy suit, and his fucking money," said Clancy, and he sipped his beer. There was a profound bitterness in his tone, like bile. "Alexia was the same, man. Always parading around like she was better than people." Clancy paused. "I'm sorry, dude," he said. "I didn't—I'm an asshole."

"It's fine," he lied, managing to smile. It had been nine years since Alexia had died, but every single day since had felt like the day after her funeral. Time, Grayson had long ago decided, didn't heal all wounds. Sometimes, he thought, time only made them fester. "It was nine years ago," said Grayson gloomily. "Just, I don't know, it still feels fresh." He shrugged, and Katie put her hand on his arm, and she smiled sympathetically. "Thanks," he said to her.

"Man," said Clancy, lighting a cigarette, watching him across the battered expanse of the table, the cherry-glow catching in his eyes and hanging there like ruby pinpoints, "you really loved her, didn't you?" The smoke seemed to drift around Clancy in slow motion, gradually freezing in the air.

"Still do," said Grayson, arms on the table.

"It's romantic, I think," said Katie, smiling warmly. "You love her so much, even though she's gone now."

"But it's unhealthy, man," said Clancy, and his tone of voice implied he was gearing for one of his you-got-to-move-on spiels. Grayson braced himself, training his features into a look of patient attentiveness. He got up, because the stool was starting to hurt his ass, and he leaned back against the railing, listening. "Dude, it's been nine years, and every single girl you've dated since, you've just upped and left 'em. Grayson, it's rough, I know, and you got dealt a really shitty hand, man, but clinging to Alexia like this ain't gonna bring her back." He frowned around his cigarette. "She's dead, buddy," he said. "There's millions of chicks out there, but you gotta give 'em a fucking chance. I feel like you automatically compare them to Alexia, right from the get-go, and you kill the relationship before it has a chance to go anywhere." Clancy finished his cigarette and put it out on the table, then flicked the smoldering butt over the railing. "Hate to say it, man, but there's probably never gonna be a girl who's like Alexia. Gotta move on."

"Clarence, leave him alone," said Katie, frowning.

"I'm just saying, he can't grieve forever," said Clancy. "Else great opportunities are gonna pass him by."

Grayson shifted the subject, and said, "So how's Annette?"

"See? He just plays it off," said Clancy. "It's unhealthy."

"She's good. Her and William have been busy," said Katie. "Between their research, and a rambunctious four-year-old, they got their hands full."

"How's Sherry anyway?"

"As good as a four-year-old can be," said Katie, smiling. "She seems happy enough. If a little distant sometimes."

"Bill and my aunt Annette are always doing shit for Umbrella," explained Clancy, and he shook his shaggy red head. "So Katie and I'll babysit Sherry at our apartment. She's coming over tomorrow, if you wanna drop by and see her, Grayson. She'd probably like to see you. Sherry, she likes you."

Grayson saw Alfred below, walking away from Larry Malone's, and he was with the blonde girl from downstairs, who, from behind, looked a lot like Alexia. Grayson thought it was weird, Alfred going for girls who looked like his sister. Or maybe, Grayson thought, they didn't look like Alexia at all, and he was just superimposing his own desires. "Actually," he said, turning back to Clancy, "that sounds great. You think I could crash at your place tonight? Alfred, he's taking a girl back to our hotel." He smiled awkwardly.

Clancy raised his eyebrows. "Alfred likes girls?" he said, surprised. "Always thought he was gay."

"Occasionally," said Grayson, still smiling.

"Have you guys ever—"

"Clarence," hissed Katie.

"I'm just asking. I mean, Alfred's Alexia's twin."

Grayson shook his head, and said, "I like women. Besides, Alfred might be her twin, but he's not Alexia. Distinct lack of womanly parts. Though he's got a pretty nice ass for a dude, and I say that enviously."

"Seriously, man?" said Clancy, laughing.

Grayson grinned and said, "What can I say? I'm jealous."

They walked the four blocks to Clancy's apartment after Last Call, and though Grayson wasn't precisely drunk, he was feeling a comfortable buzz. Clancy's apartment was a one-bedroom, decorated with a mix of second-hand furniture that smelled like cigarettes and, Grayson decided, cat, and rock paraphernalia from all the concerts he'd attended, and he'd attended a lot, all across the States. The couch was made of some scratchy tweed material, but it was cushy, and would make a decent bed for the night. Katie brought out some spare blankets and pillows, and she handed them to Grayson and said good night, and then she went into the bedroom with Clancy. Grayson turned on the television, turned the volume low, watching the silent pantomime of an episode of _Roseanne_.

When he woke the next morning, the television was playing an episode of _Goof Troop_ , and Sherry was there, watching the TV and eating a bowl of Lucky Charms. He heard voices in the kitchen, and recognized, immediately, William Birkin's voice, and he was talking to Clancy about Sherry. "Just make sure she gets a nap," William was saying, Annette idling beside him, arms folded across her breasts. They were both wearing suits and lab coats. "She gets fussy."

Sherry grinned when she saw he was awake, and she put her bowl down and hugged Grayson around the middle. "Uncle Grayson!" she said, and Grayson wanted to say he wasn't actually her uncle, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Hey, kiddo," he said, ruffling her hair. She'd gotten bigger since he'd last seen her, and her blonde hair was longer now, cut around her jaw, bangs pushed back with the red Alice band he'd bought Sherry for her third birthday.

William looked back at him and said tersely, "Morning, Sleeping Beauty." His sandy hair was combed neatly, and for once, he was actually clean-shaven, and he looked well-rested. Grayson figured it was probably because of that promotion Spencer had given him; he was the chief researcher at the Raccoon City laboratory now, Alfred had told him. "Was wondering when you were going to stop slobbering on the couch."

"Hey, Bill. Go play in traffic," said Grayson, rubbing his eyes. He saw Clancy grin behind William, and sip his coffee.

Sherry looked between them, her small forehead creasing with unease.

"Not in front of Sherry," said Annette evenly. It always amazed Grayson how Clancy and Annette were related, but they looked nothing like each other. Clancy was red-haired and freckled, and Annette was blonde and had no freckles. Although their features were similarly thin and pale, and they shared the same long, thin nose, and the same blue eyes. "Please, both of you. You're both adults, for goodness sake."

"Sure," said Grayson, picking Sherry up and putting her in his lap. "I'll be nice." He didn't mind Annette. Unlike Bill, Annette was pretty reasonable, and she seemed to always have Sherry's best interests in mind. Sherry watched her parents with apprehension, as though she expected them to suddenly start yelling, and she was bracing for it. It hurt him, seeing that expression on a four-year-old's face. He hugged her and kissed the top of her head, and he said, "It's all right, Sherry. We're all gonna be nice." Grayson smiled as the apprehension leaked out of her, and Sherry started playing with a tiny stuffed rabbit she'd taken out of the pocket of her dungarees.

Annette smiled, and she said, "She really likes you, Grayson. You'd make a good father."

He thought about Alexia then, and how he would have liked to have had kids with her someday. "Thanks," he said, and smiled.

"Of course he's good with kids," said William, and he shook his head. "He had to deal with Ashford." Then William smiled hollowly, and he said, "Oh, right. I forgot."

Grayson glared at him, imagining William's head exploding in a sudden, gory shower. He wanted to kill him, right then, but willed himself to stay on the couch. Sherry shifted uneasily in his lap, concentrating intensely on the little rabbit toy in her hands.

"William," said Annette, through her teeth, "that's enough."

William scowled, said, "We're going to be late for work," and left without waiting.

Annette looked at him. "I'm sorry," she said, and she sounded sincere.

Grayson nodded. "You're gonna be late."

Annette frowned, and she left. Clarence came over and said, "You all right, man? Bill's an asshole."

"Where's Katie?" asked Grayson, deliberately avoiding the question.

"Work," said Clancy, and he finished his coffee. "I gotta go to the RPD and fill some paperwork. I hate to ask this, man, but—"

"Don't worry, I'll watch Sherry," said Grayson, and he smiled. "I don't mind. Really."

"Thanks, man. Appreciate it." He put his mug down and grabbed his keys from the glass table beside the couch, the surface covered in scratches, and crescents of old coffee. "I'd take Sherry with me, but she'd be bored. I'll toss you a couple of bucks for the trouble, Grayson."

"Wanna stay with Uncle Grayson," mumbled Sherry, and she squeezed her little rabbit, and the thing squeaked.

"No trouble, man. Besides, Sherry has spoken. She wants to hang out with me," said Grayson, grinning. Alfred was probably still with that girl anyway, and besides, Grayson liked Sherry, and it had been a while since he'd spent any time with her. "So keep your money. We'll be fine."

"I owe you, man," said Clancy, and then he was gone.

Grayson put Sherry down and went into the kitchen, digging through the cabinets for cleaning supplies. When he found them, he went back into the living-room and sprayed the table, wiping away the old coffee stains. "Don't know how he lives like this," he said to Sherry, who attempted to assist him. Grayson laughed. "You wanna help?"

Sherry nodded. "It's gross," she said, taking the rag from him and wiping the table. "And smelly."

"Surprised he doesn't have flies," said Grayson, finishing with the table. "Or spiders," he added, retrieving the vacuum from the closet in the hallway. He planned to clean the entire apartment, because the place was rough. Clancy was a good guy, but tidiness wasn't one of his strong suits.

"Spiders are icky," agreed Sherry, and she started picking up her toys and neatly stacking them beside the couch. "I saw a spider once, and I screamed. I scared mommy. She thought I'd hurt myself."

"Spiders don't bother me, but Alfred hates them."

"Alfred?" She looked at him with huge blue eyes, and blinked.

Grayson said, "He's basically my brother," and started vacuuming the apartment.

It took a few hours, and when they were done, Clancy's apartment was as close to spotless as it could possibly get, although a faint odor of cigarettes and cat lingered in the air. He showered, and when he came back out, he asked, "You want ice cream, Sherry?" When her face lit up, Grayson smiled and took her hand. Sherry excitedly skipped alongside him. "You did a good job today, kiddo. You were a huge help."

"Mommy makes me clean my room," said Sherry, as they walked downstairs, and out onto the street.

"That's good," he said, smiling. "Teaches you responsibility."


	15. File 11 - Unraveling - Part 3

It was another warm day, and the ice cream parlor down the street was pretty busy. They sat outside at one of the patio tables, their waffle cones wrapped in paper, the ice cream dripping slowly onto their hands. Grayson had gotten himself a chocolate cone, and Sherry had gotten a small strawberry one, which she'd mostly devoured.

"Uncle Grayson," said Sherry, licking ice cream from her fingers, "who's Alexia?"

Grayson was a little surprised by the question. "How do you know about Alexia?" he asked, as a Coke truck rattled past, and vanished down the street.

"Daddy talks about her a lot. He called her your girlfriend."

He smiled sadly, and said, "She was my girlfriend. She's dead now, kiddo."

"You sound sad."

"I am," he said, honestly. "I loved her very much. Still do."

Sherry frowned, finishing her ice cream. She seemed to be contemplating something, her babyish features drawn tight in a caricature of thought. Then she patted his arm, her pink hand tiny in comparison, and said, "I bet she loves you too."

"Yeah," he said, even though he knew Alexia didn't feel anything anymore. "I hope she does."

He saw Alfred, then, coming up the street, and he was dressed in a new yuppie suit, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. "Fancy meeting you here," said Alfred, but there was something odd in his tone, a forced quality. He took off the sunglasses and sat down at their table, watching Grayson with pale blue eyes. "Ice cream parlors seem a little puerile, even for you, Harman," he remarked.

Sherry was watching him, and she said, "Uncle Grayson! He looks like a Disney prince!"

Alfred seemed to just notice Sherry now, and he stared blankly at her, and then blankly at him. It was pretty clear that Alfred had no idea how to react to someone calling him a Disney prince, especially a four-year-old girl he'd never seen before. "Uncle?" he said finally. "You don't have any siblings, Grayson."

"She just calls me that. She's Clancy's little cousin," he explained, finishing his ice cream.

"He's so pretty!" said Sherry, beaming.

"Little girl," said Alfred, with an air of impatience, "would you kindly stop?"

Sherry frowned, looking abashed.

"Alfred, leave her alone. She's only four," said Grayson.

"I only asked her to stop bloody shouting."

"I'm sorry," said Sherry, quietly.

"Don't pay him any mind, kiddo. Alfred, he's a jerk," he said, and he ruffled her hair. Then, to Alfred, "So Prince Charming, what brings you to this neck of the woods?" He wanted to ask about the girl from last night, but not in front of Sherry. "Thought you were _busy_."

Alfred stared at him, and there was something in his stare, a kind of silent confession, and Grayson did not like it. Alfred's expression smoothed into a pale mask of indifference, but the vein in his temple bulged: a sign, Grayson had once read, of stress and anxiety. "I was," said Alfred finally, idly picking at his perfectly manicured nails. "But I wanted to go for a walk."

Grayson stared back at him for a long moment, several questions buzzing through his head; but he kept his mouth shut. He didn't want to scare Sherry, who was watching Alfred with a worried look. "Think you're scaring the kid," said Grayson, and he stroked Sherry's hair. "Maybe you should go, Alfred, and we'll talk later."

Alfred's mouth became a thin, hard line. Then he put on his sunglasses, said, "I'll see you later," and walked away.

"He's scary," said Sherry, once Alfred was gone.

"He's not so bad," said Grayson, smiling. He stood and took Sherry's hand. "Come on, let's get back to Clancy's, kiddo."

Sherry nodded, and they walked back to Clancy's apartment. Clancy wasn't home yet, and it was already going on six o'clock in the evening. He put on _Aladdin_ for Sherry, and walked into the kitchen to start dinner.

It looked as if Clancy hadn't actually gone grocery shopping in weeks; his entire refrigerator was basically comprised of take-out leftovers, beer, and soda. Grayson found some chicken breasts that seemed good, a lump of mozzarella cheese that hadn't expired yet, and a foam tray of portabello mushrooms. He decided he'd make chicken stuffed with mushrooms: he cut pockets into the chicken breasts, stuffed them with the mushrooms and the cheese, dredged the chicken and rolled them in breadcrumbs, and then sauteed them in the pan. It wasn't how he'd normally make it, but he was working with virtually nothing.

When dinner was finished, he called Sherry into the kitchen. He expected her to not eat the meal, because most kids hated mushrooms, but she devoured it with gusto. "It's so good," she said, forking another little chunk into her mouth.

"Yeah?" said Grayson, grinning. "Glad you like it, kiddo."

At around ten o'clock, Clancy showed up, and Katie was right on his heels. "I'm beat," he announced, and he stopped, looking around. "Did you clean this place, man?" he asked. "And that smell. Smells fucking awesome."

"There's leftovers in the fridge. Chicken stuffed with mushrooms and cheese. And yeah, I cleaned. Sherry helped," said Grayson, and he glanced at the hallway, and added, "I put her to bed in your bedroom."

"Thanks again, man," said Clancy, and he shook his hand. "And thanks for cleaning. You didn't have to."

"Yeah, that was great of you, Grayson," said Katie, grinning. "We'll take it from here."

Grayson raised an eyebrow, and asked, "William and Annette usually leave her like this?"

Clancy nodded, dropping his keys onto the glass table by the couch. "Yep," he said, frowning. "Umbrella keeps them so goddamn busy, I guess. They probably won't show up until midnight, maybe a little later. Maybe not until the morning." He shrugged. "They're working on some kind of project, but they can't talk about it."

"Yeah. Alexia used to pull sixteen hour shifts," said Grayson, and he shook his head. "And she was a minor. Fuck knows how Umbrella got away with that."

"Company seems to get away with a lot of stuff. Just the vibe I pick up," said Clancy. Then, "Anyway, you take care, Grayson. You gonna be okay?"

"I'm a big guy," he said. "People don't fuck with me."

"All right, man," said Clancy, and he smiled. "Catch you later."

Grayson walked the whole way back to his hotel, and it started to rain. He seemed to do a lot of walking, whenever he was in Raccoon. There was a lot to see here, stuff easily missed when driving, and the city, although big, was not New York City. He passed pawn-shops, mom and pop shops, and twenty-four hour check-cashing businesses with bars on the windows. Raccoon was a pretty rough town, he'd observed; Umbrella didn't really seem to do much for the community, except divide the population into those who worked for them, and those who did not. Those who did not were poor and lived in bad neighborhoods like the one he was walking in now, eking out livings from various service jobs, or by more illicit means. Those who did work for Umbrella were well-to-do, and they lived in nice brownstones neighborhoods that had trees and flower-boxes.

People stared at him from the shadows of doorways, smoking cigarettes or joints. They probably thought he was crazy, Grayson supposed, walking here. But he didn't mind it, and he was big enough that most people left him alone. Of course, he thought, if someone pulled a gun, he'd probably be dead.

Back at the hotel, in his and Alfred's suite, Grayson felt a distinct wrongness in the air, like an electric current. The television was on, but the lights were off. The television was playing one of those late-night infomercials that advertised CDs with a particular decade's greatest hits, and it was playing Lesley Gore's _You Don't Own Me._

Grayson saw a light on in the bedroom. The suite was basically an apartment, and there were two rooms, and the light was coming from Alfred's. The back of Grayson's neck prickled, and Lesley Gore was still singing in the darkness, and now, now he was feeling profoundly uncomfortable. He stopped in front of Alfred's door, heard him talking on the other side, but the words were so low Grayson couldn't really make them out.

The door was slightly cracked, spilled a wedge of light across the pale carpet. Very gently, as if the door would explode if he pushed too hard, Grayson nudged it open. And froze, right there in the doorway.

Alfred was talking to himself in the mirror, but he wasn't acting like himself. He'd adjusted the pitch of his voice to approximate a woman's, and Grayson was almost sure he'd heard Alfred call himself Alexia. He didn't seem to notice Grayson immediately, and Grayson didn't want to move, afraid that the sudden movement would startle Alfred, make him do something unpredictable and violent.

"She was trying to get close to Grayson, brother," said Alfred to his reflection, in what Grayson assumed was Alfred's interpretation of Alexia. Alfred was wearing pink lipstick and eyeshadow, too, Grayson realized, and he honestly seemed to think he was his sister. "It had to be done, brother," he continued, with convinction. "You know I can't lose him."

"I know, sister," said Alfred, in his own voice now, wincing. He was shaking, very faintly, gripping the edge of the dresser so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. "But it's all right," he said, and Alfred was grinning now. Then he started laughing at his reflection, and it was a girlish, crazy laugh. "You took care of her, didn't you, sister?" he asked, a film of sweat on his skin. "You took care of the trollop."

Grayson didn't know what to say; he was rooted to the spot, scared stiff.

"Brother, one moment," said Alfred, in Alexia's voice. Then Alfred whipped around and came straight at him, and he kissed Grayson. It was an absolutely frightening kiss, Grayson decided; he could barely breath, and Alfred was hurting him, digging his fingernails into his shoulders. "You wouldn't betray me, Grayson," said Alfred-Alexia, peeling his mouth from his, a certain hysteria tinging his words. "You love me."

"Alfred, what the fuck is wrong with you?" asked Grayson, pulling away from him. He was scared, for the first time in a long time. He'd never seen Alfred act like this, had never seen anyone act like this.

"It's me, Grayson. It's Alexia," said Alfred-Alexia, smiling. "Don't you recognize me?"

"You're not Alexia," said Grayson, backing up toward the door. He needed to get out, and get out fast.

Alfred's demeanor did a one-eighty, and now he had Grayson around the throat, and he was slamming his head against the door. "You were seeing that woman, weren't you!" shrieked Alfred, in his sister's voice, and Grayson's head hurt deeply. Then Alfred swung him around and shoved him headlong into the mirror, and the thing smashed into pieces on impact, cutting up his face. Alfred wasn't as big or as muscular as he was, but he was a professional fighter, knew how to throw around someone twice his size. "Well, you don't have to worry," said Alfred-Alexia. "I killed her. You're mine again."

Grayson pushed himself off the dresser below the mirror, turned, slugged Alfred in the head, and he went down like a sack of weights. His face was burning and bleeding, and so were his palms, which had been cut up by the mirror shards on the dresser. "Is this some kind of sick fucking joke?"

"Grayson, what are you doing?" said Alfred-Alexia, crabbing backward. "I thought you loved me."

Grayson grabbed Alfred by the shirt and wrenched him to his feet, slamming him against the wall. A few of the Picasso reprints fell from their hooks. "You think it's fucking funny, pretending you're Alexia?" he said through his teeth, and he could feel the vein in his temple twitching. "It's not fucking funny, man. It's not fucking funny at all." Grayson knew, deep down, that this was no joke, and that Alfred really did think he was his sister; but he was angry, seeing Alexia's memory reduced to a psychotic drag-show. "You killed that girl," he said coolly. "Where?"

Alfred said, in Alfred's voice, "What are you talking about? Put me down, Grayson."

Grayson let go, surprised. "Alfred?"

Alfred looked around as though he didn't know where he was, or how he'd gotten there. "You're all cut up," he said, looking at Grayson now. "And the mirror's smashed. What bloody happened? I was sleeping."

"You weren't sleeping," he said. "You thought you were your sister."

"That's absolutely absurd," said Alfred, his forehead creasing. "Alexia's dead. No, after I'd run into you at the ice cream shop, I came back here and slept." He looked around again, at the shards of glass on the floor, and the shattered mirror. "I could have sworn I did. I'm almost certain I did." Alfred paused, wiping the lipstick from his mouth and staring, in severe confusion, at the pink smudge on his fingertips. "I don't—"

"You said you took your meds," said Grayson, scowling.

Alfred didn't say anything. He looked away. Then, "I don't like them." He frowned. "They make me feel strange. Tired. Hollow."

"Alfred, you killed someone. That girl from Larry Malone's."

"I didn't kill anyone," said Alfred, and he seemed to mean it. "We came back here, had sex, and then she left."

Grayson noticed a high heel, then, under the bed. He picked it up and showed it to Alfred. "Yours?" he asked seriously.

"Of course not," said Alfred, staring at the shoe. "That belonged to the girl. I don't even think I'd gotten her name." He paused. "She was drunk. Probably left it when she'd rushed out of here. She had a boyfriend, I'd later found out." Alfred shrugged, then he took out a handkerchief and offered it to Grayson. "Not that I care," he added. "She likely wanted to beat him home, before he grew wise to her indiscretion."

Grayson started wiping the blood from his face with the handkerchief, then went into the bathroom and cleaned himself up. Alfred followed him. "I need sleep," said Grayson, dropping the handkerchief into the wastebin. "My head—my everything—hurts."

"I'm sorry if I'd done something," said Alfred, and he started cleaning the make-up off his face as though he'd cleaned make-up off his face before. "You know I wouldn't intentionally hurt you. For how insufferable you can be sometimes, Harman, I do like you."

"It's fine. It's been a weird day, and I just want to sleep," said Grayson, and then he went to his bedroom and slept.


	16. File 11 - Unraveling - Part 4

He dreamed about the girl from Larry Malone's, and in the dream, he'd followed her out into streetlit darkness, under a sky of neon and mercury vapors. And then, without transition, her face became Alexia's, and his hands were around her throat—and they were standing, then, in an alleyway, and her body was sprawled across wet trash-bags and junk, her blue eyes wide, staring lifelessly at the sky, and the neon and mercury were reflected in her irises.

He woke up and understood, then, what had happened to her. Perhaps it hadn't happened in that way, but she was dead, and Grayson knew that now, and he should have known that, because Alfred had told him so. _But then_ , something with his voice said, _you always knew what Alfred was capable of, so why, why does it surprise you_? He got up, showered, and dressed, and then, while Alfred was still asleep, he went outside and checked the alleyway behind their hotel. But there was no girl in the dumpster. _And why would there be_ , Grayson thought. _Alfred doesn't shit where he eats_.

A cool rain started to fall, pattering on the worn cement, and Grayson fumbled through his pockets for his Lucky Strikes, lit one, and then walked away, in no particular direction.

He checked his watch, the silver Cartier Alfred had bought him for his birthday. It was a quarter past six in the morning. He couldn't go back to sleep, not after that dream, so he kept walking, eventually stumbling into a local restaurant called Grill 13, and he only vaguely remembered coming to Grill 13 with Clancy once, and the food had been good, Grayson remembered, and he'd always meant to come again. It was an early morning crowd, mostly older folks who had nothing better to do in their retirement than eat out for breakfast; it seemed, to Grayson, to be some universal rule, that once you hit your golden years, your internal clock adjusted so precisely that you never missed an early bird special.

The restaurant smelled like fried eggs and sausage, and coffee. He sat down at one of the booths, feeling out of place among the blue-haired geriatrics. A sleepy brunette girl took his order—poached eggs, sausage, toast, and a coffee—and went away to relay it to the kitchen.

His mind kept replaying the dream: his hands around the girl's throat, Alexia's dead face in the dumpster, and the neon and mercury in her eyes; and then it would loop again, in that exact sequence. He shivered involuntarily, and heard someone say at a nearby table, "You hear? Michael Warren's niece disappeared."

 _Great_ , Grayson thought, frowning. Alfred had killed the mayor's niece. There was a feeling in his gut then, like an ice-cube sliding down into his stomach. "Yes, I did," said a woman who Grayson presumed was the man's wife. "Horrible. Hopefully, she'll turn up all right. She's a young girl. Perhaps she'd just run away?"

 _She died,_ Grayson thought to himself _. She's not coming back, lady, not in anything but a zip-bag._ The waitress came back with his coffee, smiled tiredly, and told him his food was on its way, and to holler if he needed anything. He gave her a polite smile, and he drank his coffee, trying not to think, at least right now, about Michael Warren's niece.

After breakfast, he came out into steady rain, and he walked, his hair and jacket dripping by the time he'd reached the end of the street. Someone talked, and at first he wasn't sure if they were talking to him, or to someone else, and they said, "Strange seeing you here."

He looked up, his cigarette smoldering in his mouth. "Annette."

Annette stood there with an umbrella, in a denim jacket and jeans, and Sherry was with her, holding her hand. Sherry smiled at him with her little kid teeth, but she looked tired. She was wearing a jean jumper, and her red Alice band, and she had her _Little Mermaid_ backpack, a plastic _Beauty and the Beast_ keychain attached to the brass zipper. "Taking Sherry out for breakfast before kindergarten," explained Annette, even though Grayson hadn't asked. "You're the last person I'd expect to see walking around this early." Annette paused, staring at him. Then she asked, "What happened to your face?"

"Was drinking, and I fell," he lied, and shrugged. Then he looked at Sherry, and said, "Bet you don't wanna go to school, huh?" He smiled, took another long drag of the cigarette, and then flicked it onto the pavement, crushing it under his shoe.

"I'm the youngest person there," mumbled Sherry, frowning morosely. "The kids make fun of me 'cause of that."

"Alexia was the youngest person in her university," he pointed out, because it seemed like something he should say. "She got teased a lot, too. But you know what?" He crouched on his toes and grinned at her, ruffling her hair. "They were just jealous because she was smarter than them. Those kids, they're just jealous, Sherry, because you're younger than them and already on their level. That's all."

Annette smiled, and so did Sherry. "See?" said Annette, looking down at Sherry. "I told you, sweetie."

"Did they make fun of Alexia for being short?" asked Sherry seriously.

"Yep," he said, remembering several things Alexia had told him. "But you know what happened?" He paused, in theatrical silence.

"What?" asked Sherry.

"She got really tall," said Grayson, and he gently poked her on the nose. "Maybe you'll get tall, too, and then you can make fun of them for being short." Sherry beamed, and Annette chuckled. "And if you don't," he said, still smiling, "then who cares? There's advantages to being short, kiddo."

"There is?"

Grayson nodded sagely, and so did Annette, almost in perfect synchroneity. "Morning commutes on the subway will never be uncomfortable for you," he began, grinning broadly. "You'll be able to fit inside one of those small Japanese cars that just run forever and ever, and save yourself a fortune in car repairs. Clothes shopping will never be painful for you. Crowds will never be an issue anywhere, because you'll barely take up room. I once went to a concert at a small venue, couple of years ago, and it was a tight, hot fit, and it made the show unenjoyable." Grayson paused, conspiratorially looking side to side as if making sure the coast was clear of eavesdroppers. "And maybe if you're short enough," he stage-whispered, "you can even take advantage of kid discounts at restaurants, museums, theaters, and maybe even amusement parks." He winked. "But don't tell your mom I told you that, okay?"

"Tell me what?" said Annette, and she winked at him.

"Nothing, mommy," said Sherry, grinning, the smile nearly touching her eyes.

"Anyway," said Annette, smiling, "I'm going to take Sherry over to Grill 13. Want to join us, Grayson?"

He shook his head, and stood. "Just ate there, actually. Try the poached eggs. They're good."

"Well, all right." Annette checked her watch, an Oris on a dark leather strap. "God, it's later than I'd thought." She looked at him, and her eyes were the same pale blue as Sherry's, the same pale blue as Clancy's, and Grayson idly wondered if everyone in Annette's family had eyes like that. "Sorry, Grayson," she said. "I have to be at work, right after I drop Sherry off at kindergarten."

"Don't let me hold you up," he said, and he flashed a smile. Annette had her moments when she could be an insufferable bitch, but sometimes, sometimes, like now, Grayson genuinely liked her. He had this theory that Bill was a kind of trigger, made the meanness in her come out. When Bill wasn't around, Annette was pretty agreeable. "You go have breakfast, Annette." He looked at Sherry and said, "See you later, kiddo. Have a good day at school."

"Bye, Uncle Grayson!" said Sherry, waving at him. She walked away with Annette, spun around suddenly, said, "I hope your face gets better!" and then they were gone. He smiled, then walked the other way.

He walked for a few hours. Grayson saw an older woman taping a photocopy to the window of KENDO'S GUN SHOP, and when he came closer, he realized the girl in the photo was the girl Alfred had left Larry Malone's with. "Think they're gonna find her?" he asked the woman, hoping, maybe, she could tell him how the investigation was progressing, because the woman looked like the sort of woman who knew all the local gossip.

The woman looked at the photocopy, then looked at him, and she frowned. "Hard to say. Girls go missing all the time. Michael Warren is asking volunteers to put up these pictures," she said, and she sighed. "Poor girl."

"Cops have any leads yet?" he asked, conversationally.

The woman shook her head. "Not that I know of," she said. "Right now, as I hear it, they're just interviewing folks who were at Larry Malone's the night she'd disappeared. Rotten place, that bar. But the kids keep going there."

Grayson's stomach dropped, and he said, "Really? Well. Hopefully they find something."

"Certainly hope so, too," said the woman, and then she got into her car and drove away.

Grayson studied the girl's face, and she really did look like Alexia, although her face was a bit rounder. Her name, apparently, had been Amanda Cleary, and she'd been a junior at Raccoon University. "Fucking shit, Alfred," he said quietly, hands in his pockets. "You just had to pick the Mayor's niece."

When he returned to the hotel, he felt something, like cold water trickling down his spine. He saw a cop car parked outside, and the hood was still warm; they'd just gotten there. When Grayson got up to the room, a middle-aged cop with graying hair stood at their hotel door. Grayson waited. The cop knocked again, and then the door opened, and the cop introduced himself as Detective Graves. Then the cop went inside, and Grayson hesitated, but willed himself to follow.

"I just have a few questions regarding the Amanda Cleary disappearance," he heard Graves say, in his cop voice.

Grayson peeked into the door, which Graves had left slightly cracked. Alfred was standing there, watching Graves with inhuman calm. "Terrible, that," said Alfred to Graves, his arms folded across his chest. He seemed to be waiting for something, Grayson decided. "I truly hope they find the girl," he added, smiling winningly.

"You were at Larry Malone's the night she'd disappeared," said Graves, in that same hard cop voice. "Witness says they saw you leave with her, Mr. Ashford."

"I did, and we came back here and had sex," said Alfred, and he shrugged. Again, that too-charming smile. "Last I'd checked, that wasn't against the law."

"It isn't. But she disappeared after leaving with you, Mr. Ashford."

"She left the hotel room. That was the last time I saw her, Detective Graves."

"Don't mind if I look around, do you?"

"Do you have a search warrant?"

Graves laughed, and started looking around anyway. At that point, Grayson felt it in the air: something bad was about to go down. And it did. Alfred took something from his pocket, a garrote made from what looked like a telephone cord, and he crept up on Graves while his back was turned, pulling it around the detective's throat until Alfred's hands were shaking, and his knuckles were white. Grayson quickly went inside and shut the door, locking it, and by the time he'd reached Alfred, Graves was already dead. "Are you fucking—you just killed a cop," said Grayson, through his teeth, watching Alfred calmly fold the garrote and stow it in his pocket.

"He was bothering my brother," said Alfred, in Alexia's voice, and he smiled like a psychopath. "I didn't want him to pay for something I'd done, Grayson." He looked at him now, and it was the coldest look Grayson had ever seen, turned his blood to ice. "Now we need to get rid of him," said Alfred-Alexia, conversationally, and he stepped over Graves, came back with the fairbairn-sykes knife he always carried. "Cut him up into little pieces." He giggled.

"Stop, Alfred," said Grayson, nudging him away.

"Alexia," said Alfred-Alexia coolly. "I'm not my brother."

"No, I'm standing right here," said Alfred, in his own voice, but that craziness never quite left his eyes, and he was brandishing the knife.

"Alexia. Whatever," said Grayson, and he stepped over Graves' body and went to the phone. He took the handset off the cradle and called the only person who could help them make Graves disappear completely. "Hey, Wesker," said Grayson, "we've got a problem."


	17. File 11 - Unraveling - End - Part 5

Wesker came, and he stared at Graves' corpse, his expression unreadable under his sunglasses. "Well, this is a mess," he said smoothly. He wore a black suit, and he smelled like good cologne and, underneath that, faintly, of whiskey. "But why call me?" asked Wesker, looking at him, and Grayson stared at himself in his sunglasses. Wesker wasn't as big to him anymore; as a kid, Wesker had been a giant. But now, Grayson stood a few inches taller than him.

"You transferred to Umbrella's Intelligence Division, right?" asked Grayson, remembering something Alfred had told him once. "Just seemed like a good idea," he added, glancing at Graves' dead face and frowning. "Call the spooks, because making things disappear sounds like spook biz." He looked at Wesker, shrugging. "Wesker, you can do something, right? Alexia told me the RPD was in Umbrella's pocket, a long time ago." Grayson paused. "Unless that's changed?"

"That hasn't changed," said Wesker, hands in his pockets. He stood in stark black contrast to the gray beyond the panoramic windows. It hadn't stopped raining since yesterday.

"So maybe you can stop them from investigating?"

Wesker said, "I could talk to Brian Irons. But you must understand, not every cop is in our pocket." He looked at Graves, then at Alfred, who Wesker had knocked unconscious: a precise punch to the head was all it had taken him to put Alfred out. "You always have individuals who don't want to play ball," he added, and he stopped, glancing at the fairbairn-sykes knife lying on the pale carpet. "Did Alfred really intend to cut him up with that thing?" he asked.

"He's crazy, Wesker."

"No kidding," said Wesker. "You can't cut through bone with a commando knife." He smiled emptily, and then said, "Well, I can take care of your problem with the good detective here. On one condition. Two, actually."

"Anything."

"You and Alfred are going to owe me a favor. Each."

"Deal," he said automatically, and they shook hands.

"Wonderful. You can leave, Grayson," said Wesker, still smiling without any warmth. "Don't worry about Graves anymore." He glanced at the corpse, and said, "It'll be like he'd never existed."

"What about Alfred?"

"Umbrella will ensure he's on the first plane to England, after he tells me where he put Amanda Cleary's body."

"Destroy all evidence," said Grayson, without thinking.

"Precisely," said Wesker.

Grayson was a little sad to hear Alfred would be going, but knew it was for the best. He'd killed two people, and it was only a matter of time before the locals started to catch on. He decided to get out of Albert's way, and Grayson went for a walk, eventually finding himself at Grill 13 again for dinner. He ordered a steak, and a baked potato with all the works, and he watched the rain beyond the windows reduce the neon and the lights to bright watercolors on the slick pavement. He was nearly finished with his dinner when Albert came in, sat down across from him at the table, and said, "We have a problem."

His heart started to pound, a prickling feeling on his neck. Grayson busied himself by poking at the ruin of his baked potato, concentrating, his right leg bobbing up and down—a nervous habit. Had Wesker been unable to make Graves vanish? Or had Umbrella decided that Alfred wasn't worth protecting, and now, now he would go to prison, and so would Grayson. "What is it?" he finally asked.

"Finish your dinner, and we'll talk elsewhere."

Grayson put his fork down, said, "I'm done," and put the tip on the table. Then he paid, and they left.

Wesker walked him to his car, and it was a black jaguar, and it was the same '83 black jaguar, Grayson realized, from when Alexia and him had been kids. It still looked brand new. "Get in," said Wesker, and Grayson did. Wesker drove, and The Doors sang _People Are Strange_ on the radio. "We disposed of Graves in the Arklay facility." Wesker reached over and turned the music a little lower, so Jim Morrison sounded like he was mumbling. "We also paid off Brian Irons, and he's working to suspend the investigation."

"So what's the problem then?" asked Grayson, looking at him.

"Alfred won't tell me where he'd put Amanda Cleary. He swears he can't remember."

Grayson nodded, understanding now. It seemed, to Grayson, that everything Alfred did as Alexia, it was something only Alexia knew. Alfred, in Alfred's head, was a completely separate person. "And you think he'll tell me," he said.

"Indeed," said Wesker, the cool dashboard lights reflected in his sunglasses. "Or so I hope."

In their suite, Alfred was sitting on the couch in the living-room, and he was drinking scotch and watching a rerun of _Quantum Leap,_ the one where Sam jumps into the body of a war vet who brings his Japanese wife back to the States, much to the prejudicial chagrin of the locals. Grayson came over, Wesker right behind him, and asked, "Hey, buddy. Alexia tell you where she put Amanda Cleary?" Alfred stared expressionlessly at him, and Wesker gave him a look, as though he couldn't understand why Grayson would have asked something so stupid. Grayson fidgeted, and gently cleared his throat.

"Alexia is dead, Harman," said Alfred, like Grayson was crazy, and he didn't want to upset his precarious mental equilibrium by speaking too harshly. He set his scotch on the table beside the couch and shifted uncomfortably, the leather upholstery squeaking with the movement. Alfred wore his red chenille robe, and he smelled like the shower.

"We don't have time for these games, Alfred," said Wesker evenly. "Where is the Cleary girl?"

"I had sex with her, and then I let her go," said Alfred, visibly annoyed. "I don't know what bloody happened to her after that."

"Alfred," said Grayson, frowning, "what do you remember about that night?"

"Like I bloody fucking said, I had sex with her. Then she'd informed me she had a boyfriend, and..." Alfred trailed off, his forehead creasing with the effort of recollection. Then, "I don't remember after that."

Perhaps, Grayson thought, when Cleary had admitted she'd had a boyfriend, it had set something off. Triggered something. And then he thought about how obsessed Alfred-Alexia had been with him, how he'd accused Grayson of seeing "that woman", and Grayson said, "Hey, so I've been talking to this girl." He let that hang in the air, saw something subtle change in Alfred's expression. "It's been pretty great," he added, smiling, and the changes in Alfred's face became increasingly more apparent. "I think we're hitting it off."

Wesker looked at him, and said, "Now is not the time to discuss your romantic ventures, Grayson."

Then Alfred, as he'd hoped he would, snapped, and he shoved Grayson over the coffee table, and Grayson hit the carpet and banged his head against the edge of the television stand. His head ached, and then Alfred was wrenching him to his feet and saying, in Alexia's voice, "You're mine, Grayson." His pale eyes were wide and crazy, the pupils reduced to pinpoints, and he slammed Grayson's head against the television stand again, shattering one of the glass door panels.

"That's enough," said Wesker, and he pulled Alfred off of him. Grayson lay there, his head aching deeply, watching the fuzzy shapes of Wesker and Alfred hovering over him. "Where is Amanda Cleary?"

Alfred might have told him, but Grayson blacked and did not hear it.

When he came around, he was in the back of Wesker's jaguar, and Wesker was saying to him, "You had a few nasty cuts, but you're all right." Neil Young sang _My, My, Hey, Hey_ on the radio. Grayson sat up, and they were somewhere in the Arklays; Grayson knew it was the Arklays because they were surrounded by woods, and the road had started to slope upward, into mountain darkness. The only lights were the lights of Wesker's dashboard, and the headlights of his car. His wipers sloshed rain across the windshield glass. "Alfred said he'd brought Cleary to the hiking trails, near the old hospital."

"Thanks for helping me out, back there, Wesker."

"I couldn't precisely leave you. You owe me a favor, and favors are valuable commodities." Wesker drove in silence, then, the sound of rain pattering on the roof, and the rhythmic thumping of the wipers, hanging in the air between them. Then he asked, "How long has Alfred been like that?" Although Grayson couldn't see his eyes behind the sunglasses, he could feel Wesker's eyes on him in the mirror. In the mirror, Wesker's face, in the glow of the dashboard, looked haunted and ghostly.

"Started around 1985, I'd say, when Alfred was fifteen," said Grayson. "Just became real withdrawn and strange. But I'd never seen him flip shit like that. You know, pretending he's Alexia." He frowned. "We brought him to a psychiatrist after he'd had a pretty severe meltdown, and he was put on a strict regimen of meds. He hasn't been keeping up on them, I guess, and now he's finally losing it. Or maybe the meds just weren't strong enough? I don't know. Alfred said they make him feel weird."

"Could possibly be a side-effect of whatever medication he's on now," suggested Wesker, coasting around a curve, and driving down a long, lonely stretch of woodland road. Grayson saw aluminum signs on the side of the road that announced they were approaching the hiking trails and campgrounds. "Perhaps they're making his delusions worse?" he ventured. "Medications are often highly experimental, Grayson."

He'd never considered that. "Maybe," he said.

Wesker parked the car, and Grayson followed him down a hiking trail that seemed relatively neglected, little more than a strip of mud now. They hiked for some time, and the sides of the trail became steep and rocky. Wesker told him to watch his step, and they made their way down the side of the trail, the rocks shifting precariously under their shoes. Once they reached the bottom, Grayson could see something through the trees, a large building surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence. "They closed the hiking trails down around here," began Wesker, and he was rooting around the underbrush and rocks, "when the hospital bought the land. It's a subsidiary of Umbrella."

He remembered Alexia mentioning something about that, when they were kids. "Yeah," he said, and underneath the light patter of rain, he was sure he heard a river nearby. "Alexia told me. They were testing some kind of drug to cure cancer, or something."

"That's what she told you?" Wesker chuckled. "Well," he continued, "it's not entirely a lie." He stopped, and said, "Here we are."

Grayson looked. There was something there, among the underbrush and rocks. It was a trashbag, and he saw a dead white finger poking through a hole in the plastic. "Is that Amanda Cleary?"

"Indeed," said Wesker, and he took out his cell phone. "This is Albert Wesker," he said to the person on the other end, in a professional voice. "I need a pick up at the following coordinates."

The Umbrella specialists came and went like ghosts, and they'd spirited Amanda Cleary away, in the direction of the hospital. Grayson thought of the night the specialists had retrieved Alexander from Alexia's office, then, after the twins had killed him, and how the whole clean-up had been done with the same flawless, quiet choreography that came from routine.

As they were driving back to Raccoon City, Grayson asked Wesker, "So what happened with Alfred, after I'd conked?" He sat in the passenger seat now, a heavy rain splattering on the windows.

"Once I'd gotten him to tell me where he'd put Cleary, and he'd returned to normal, I'd dropped him off at the airport," said Wesker, fiddling with the radio. "He's on a company flight to England, right now."

"For the best," said Grayson, although he wished he could have at least said good-bye.

"Do his 'episodes' usually come and go like that?" asked Wesker.

"Seems so," said Grayson, and he shrugged. "Like I said, I'd never seen him act like that before."

"Umbrella's also appointing him a psychiatrist," said Wesker, conversationally. "If he's going to run Rockfort, it's imperative he receives the right treatment."

"Hopefully the new doctor can do something for him," he said, watching the trees rushing past his window.

When they reached Raccoon, Wesker asked, "Shall I drop you off at the hotel?"

Grayson shook his head. "Mind taking me to Clancy's place?"

Wesker stared at him. Then, "Clarence is Annette's nephew, isn't he?"

He nodded. "I think I'm gonna head back to Columbia a little early," he said. "Wanna say bye to everyone."

"It's best you do leave," agreed Wesker, without looking at him. "Just until Amanda Cleary and Graves, like so many missing persons before them, are forgotten by the public, their files lost forever among the cold cases."

Wesker dropped him off at Clancy's apartment, and when Clancy opened the door, he said, "Saw you pull up in a black jag, man." He shook Grayson's hand, then let him inside. Sherry sat on her knees, hugging her favorite stuffed toy, the one of the flounder from Little Mermaid, and she was watching _Who Framed Roger Rabbit,_ and it was the scene where Jessic Rabbit sings _Why Don't You Do Right._ "Who was that guy in the sunglasses?"

Sherry chimed, "That's Mr. Wesker!" She got up and hurried over to Grayson, beaming, hugging the flounder toy to her chest. "You know Mr. Wesker too, Uncle Grayson?"

"We're old acquaintances," he said, and chuckled, scooping Sherry up.

"You're super tall, Uncle Grayson," she said, giggling.

"It stinks sometimes. I hit my head on doorframes a lot."

Clancy chuckled. "So what brings you by, man?"

"Gonna be heading back to New York, in the morning," said Grayson, and he realized he'd said that almost apologetically, and Grayson was apologetic, he supposed, because he'd planned to stay longer. But he wanted to be gone; he'd been in the room when Detective Graves had been strangled to death, and that made him an accessory to the crime. Just like when he'd killed that kid in Atlantic City for stealing his shoes and had gone to Rockfort, he wanted to be far away before, and if, things got too hot. "Something came up, so I can't stay as long as I'd planned." Sherry frowned at him, and he kissed her cheek. "Sorry, kiddo," he said.

"Don't go, Uncle Grayson," she said, squeezing her flounder toy.

"Grayson's an adult, Sherry," said Clancy diplomatically. "He's got responsibilities."

"Being a grown-up is stupid," remarked Sherry, pouting.

"You're gonna be a grown-up too, one day," said Clancy. Then, to Grayson, "I'll at least go to the airport with you tomorrow, man. Katie's working, and Sherry's got kindergarten. Unless you're taking a later flight?"

Grayson shook his head. "No. Going early."

Clancy nodded. "I'm usually up by five o'clock every morning, so I can go there with you before work."

"I wanna come too!" said Sherry.

"You ain't going to be up at no five o'clock in the morning, Sherry," said Clancy, gently pinching her nose. "Don't worry," he added, grinning, "Grayson'll call, and I'll let you talk to him on the phone."

"I'll call," assured Grayson, smiling. "Promise."

"Not the same," mumbled Sherry, and she buried her nose in the flounder toy, scowling.

Grayson hugged her, then put her down and said, "Not like I'm disappearing forever, kiddo. I'll come around again, Sherry. Promise."

Sherry stared up at him as though she was assessing the truth in his claim, and then she extended her pinky and said, "You pinky-swear?"

He crouched on his toes and hooked his pinky with hers, shaking. "Pinky-swear," said Grayson seriously.

"Okay," said Sherry, and she nodded, seemingly satisfied. "But you better not break your promise."


	18. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - Part 1

**A Tragic Monster**

 _Raccoon City, 1983_

The black jaguar purred down the lonely stretch of Arklay road, its headlights illuminating the trees, the wet tarmac, the occasional shapeless lump of roadkill. The Kinks sang _He's Evil_ on the radio, and Albert Wesker said to her, "Sorry to call you back on such short notice, Alexia." He reached over and turned the music down. "Bit of a problem, you see," he added.

"It sounded urgent." When Albert had called and had asked for her help, Alexia had been surprised. She'd thought, after declining Marcus's offer, she would be unwelcome in the Arklay Laboratory. But Arklay wasn't really Marcus's show anymore, she supposed; it was Birkin's circus now.

"Are you familiar with the NE-α Type?"

"Some kind of parasite they're trying to cultivate through gene manipulation, yes?" said Alexia, looking at him. She remembered talking about the project with some researchers, although she couldn't remember where or when. "Believe it has something to do with that Nemesis pipe-dream Umbrella Europe has been working on."

Wesker adjusted his sunglasses, and it bothered Alexia that he wore sunglasses even when there wasn't any sun. "The Nemesis project is still in its infancy," he said. "We've asked Umbrella Europe for a sample of the NE-α Type, but they've been stonewalling our requests. Which is why we need you."

"Let me guess," said Alexia, staring out the window, rain beading on the glass, "you want me to use my family's influence to acquire a sample. If that was the case, you could have bloody said so on the phone, Albert."

"No, actually."

Alexia looked expectantly at him, raising an eyebrow.

"We," he began, with a sagely air, "need your assistance."

"My assistance with Neptune wasn't very appreciated, Albert."

"Funnily enough," said Albert, and he was smiling now, and it occurred to Alexia that there was always this mimetic quality to his smiles, as though he only smiled because other people did, "it was Birkin who asked me to contact you."

She stared blankly.

"Oh yes," said Albert, and now there was a kind of amused smugness in his smile that almost, to Alexia, made his smile seem human. "The subject in question we need your assistance with is Lisa Trevor. Perhaps you might have heard of her?"

"Subject for the initial testing stage of the progenitor virus during the 1960s." She'd read a precis on Lisa Trevor when she'd first joined Umbrella, and the images in the precis, at first, had made her mistakenly believe she was reading a precis from some early Mengele experiment. "Her father disappeared," she added. "George Trevor."

"'Disappeared'," said Albert, and he chuckled. The dashboard glowed in his sunglasses, and the design of the dials made her think of crop circles. Then, "Lisa Trevor is deteroriating rapidly, mentally and physically, and we need to stabilize her. Else we lose two decades of valuable data, and the key to some significant potential breakthroughs in progenitor research."

"I see. And you believe I can stabilize her?"

"Your T-Veronica is the key."

"It's still highly prototype, Albert," she said.

"Even so, it's a start, and frankly, we're running short on options."

"Well," said Alexia, "if anything, it provides me with an opportunity to further study my virus under different variables."

"See?" said Albert. "Silver linings."

They arrived at the Spencer estate at a quarter past midnight, and Albert helped with her bags. Her room was the same room she'd stayed in before, and it hadn't changed at all since she'd last been here. The same chestnut furniture, the same hardwood floor with the oriental throw rug, the same paisley-papered walls. It smelled, faintly, of old books, and something else underneath that smell, something that made her think of bananas.

Albert set her bags by the door and said, "I'm going to head down to Arklay. We'll call for you in the morning, Alexia."

"I could go now."

Albert shook his head, said, "Get some sleep," and left before Alexia could reply.

Alexia decided it was probably best that she listened to Albert. If they didn't want her down there right now, fine, she really did not feel like dealing with Birkin's unpleasantness anyway. She started unpacking her bags and sorting the clothes inside the bureau, watching her pale, bored reflection in the dust-specked mirror. It started to rain outside, and she heard thunder.

 _Tap, tap, tap_. Alexia froze, had a frisson, then, of cold fear. _Just branches_ , she told herself, concentrating on her unpacking. _There's trees everywhere, and it's just branches on the window. After all, I'm in the Arklays_...

 _Tap, Tap, Tap_. This time the sound was louder, and Alexia felt uneasy. She looked over at the bay window, saw nothing there. Her skin prickled. Alexia stiffly went to the window and undid the brass latches, opening it to light summer rain, and the rumble of thunder.

Then something appeared in the open window, and Alexia screamed, stumbling backward and falling flat on her ass. Grayson was laughing in the window, in a rain-stained gray Members Only jacket, and jeans. "Jesus Christ, you should have seen your face," he said, still laughing. "You're too easy to scare."

"I wouldn't have screamed," she said, getting up and punching him, hard, in the chest, "if you'd use the fucking front door like a normal person!" Alexia punched him again, and he laughed, told her to relax. "You're not even supposed to be here!" she shouted. "You're supposed to be in bloody Antarctica!"

"I came through the window 'cause I wanted to see if I could climb it," said Grayson sagely, and he invited himself into her room and sat on the edge of her bed. "And check it out," he added, throwing out his arms, "I climbed it."

Alexia shut the window and turned toward him. "Does Spencer know you're here?" Alexia would, of course, be lying if she told herself she wasn't happy to see him, but she was worried. Grayson was, presently, trespassing on Umbrella property, and Umbrella often hurt, even killed people who trespassed on their property.

"Relax," he said, in his usual carefree way. "It'll be fine. I'm with you, ain't I?"

"Grayson, it doesn't work like that. There are policies. I have to go through proper channels—"

"Spencer loves you," he said, unzipping his jacket and hanging it on the bedpost. The jacket dripped onto the floorboards. "He'll be fine."

"How did you get here anyway?"

"Does it matter?" He messed his hair, the ends sticking up at odd angles. "I got my ways."

Alexia rolled her eyes, then said, "Why did you come, Grayson?"

"I don't like it when you're not around."

Alexia felt the fight leave her, then, and she smiled. "I'll see about getting you temporary clearance in the morning," she said, and she sat down on the bed beside him, hands in her lap. "Hopefully," she began, staring at the rain pattering on the bay window, "there won't be an issue."

"I know it's crazy, coming all this way to see you," said Grayson, and he put his large hand on her arm. "I've just been getting this weird feeling lately, Alexia. Like you're going away soon, for a long time." He stared at her with diamond-colored eyes. "I know it's stupid, you're not going anywhere, but, well, I'm a pretty stupid guy." He shrugged. His hair began to curl as it dried, made Alexia think of black seaweed. "So I guess it works out."

"You're not stupid," she said warmly, and she felt a little sad, too, because Grayson was right, she would be going away for a long time. And that time was creeping closer, just a few months away now. "You're impetuous." Alexia placed her hand atop his, and she kissed his shoulder. "You rarely think before you do something."

"Yeah, I guess," he said, staring in the middle-distance.

"I'll talk to Albert in the morning," she assured him. "Get all this sorted out."

"I'm not gonna get you in trouble, am I?"

"I don't think so," said Alexia, although she couldn't be sure.

"You sure?" said Grayson, staring at her.

"It'll be fine," said Alexia, and she smiled. She pushed him down on the bed and curled up against his side. "But let's sleep, right now," she said, and she yawned and buried her nose in his shoulder, and fell asleep.

The next morning, Albert said to her, "You have a guest." They were walking to the fountain behind the mansion, which concealed the entrance to the Arklay laboratory. She watched, apprehensively, as Albert punched his credentials into the small computer terminal hidden behind a false panel on the fountain.

"So you know," she said, frowning. Her heart was beating fast.

"Of course. The mansion is monitored, Alexia. But you needn't worry." Albert paused, and there was a sudden loud noise of rushing water, and the fountain started to drain, revealing a set of concrete steps, and the lift that would take them underground. "If Umbrella was truly concerned about Grayson's presence, he would have been shot before he'd ever made it to the mansion." They went down the steps, and stepped into the elevator. Albert punched the DOWN button. The gate rattled shut, and the lift started to descend into cool, wet darkness. "We've granted him temporary clearance. We suspect if he pokes around too much, you'll dissuade him. He is, after all, your responsibility." Albert looked at her. He wore a black button-up and black dress trousers, and a lab coat, his ID pinned to the lapel. "You understand what that means."

"If he fucks up, I fuck up, and we both go down," said Alexia, understanding the implied threat perfectly. She pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her baggy lab coat, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and fished out her company ID, pinning it to her lapel. The lift lurched to a stop, and she stepped out beside Albert. "Grayson is completely loyal to my family, and to me," she said, the hard soles of her loafers clicking sharply against the concrete floor. "He's done some stupid things, yes, but he knows not to run his mouth when it comes to Umbrella."

"You told him things about the company?" asked Albert, and she could hear the disapproval in his voice.

They stopped at the security gate. The guard there was reading, this time, a worn paperback of _Firestarter_. She unclipped her ID, and so did Albert, and they handed them over. She watched the guard feed one ID into his scanner, then the other ID, and go through his usual routine of grunting, complaining under his breath, and taking too long to type because he only used one hand, because he was too busy sipping his coffee with the other.

"I didn't tell him anything," she said finally, and she stared at the brass pin on the guard's shirt, which gave his name as George Alias. Then she stared at the portwine birthmark near his mouth, which always contorted unpleasantly whenever Alias frowned, and grimaced. "Grayson's like an animal, I suppose, in that regard," said Alexia. "You know how animals can sense storms before they come? It's like that. He knows to run away from the storm."

"Make sure it stays that way," said Albert dully. Then, smiling, "He's in your capable hands, Alexia."

Alias finally gave their IDs back and buzzed them through the automated security gate. "Have a good day, Dr. Ashford, Dr. Wesker."

"You're grumpier than usual, Alias," said Wesker, clipping his ID to his lapel and smiling meaninglessly. "Lose another poker game?"

"Steve's a fucking cheater," grunted Alias, and he drank his coffee.

They went to the specimen wing, and into one of the laboratories. William Birkin was there, shuffling through a stack of print-outs. "Fuck," he said aloud, and he sat back in his ergonomic chair. "It's not looking good, Albert." He stacked the print-outs and shoved them back into a manila folder, then handed the folder to Albert. "Look at that shit. The sequencing is fucked. I'm seeing rows and columns in my sleep. The mutations are getting worse and worse, and—" Birkin stopped, stared at her, and said coolly, "Ashford."

"Albert informed me that you'd wanted my help, Birkin," she said, smiling smugly.

"Eat it," said Birkin, and he stood, rubbing his eyes.

"Is that you're way of saying, 'Why yes, Alexia. I would love your help'?"

"Only because it helps further my G-Virus research, Ashford. You're a means to an end." Birkin started toward the door. "Besides," he said, "Lisa Trevor gives me the creeps. Less time I have to spend with her, the better."

"Can't possibly be that bad," said Alexia. "She's another specimen."

Birkin stopped, then looked at her and said, "She ripped some guy's face off. Literally."


	19. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - Part 2

Albert walked her down to Observation, where Umbrella kept Lisa Trevor. Alexia was shuffling through the print-outs, looking over the DNA bands, and she noticed several irregularities in the sequences, or pieces missing entirely. She read a few of Birkin's annotations, and he seemed to have narrowed the problem to a particular cluster of genes in chromosomes 2 and 3. "Birkin was lying when he'd said Lisa Trevor ripped someone's face off," said Alexia, closing the folder and looking at Albert. "Right?"

Albert, not one, Alexia had found, to dance around details, said, very casually, "She did."

Alexia tucked the folder under her arm and stared at him. "Literally ripped his face off?" she asked.

"And wore it," he said, tipping his head on one side. Albert pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose and smiled hollowly.

"Wore it," she repeated, and she paused, letting that sink in. Alexia felt, then, as though her entire body was filled with cold air. "Like... like Leatherface? Like peeled his bloody face off and wore it like a mask?"

"Yes," said Albert, still smiling. They were buzzed through another security checkpoint. The tunnel here was old, scuffed concrete lit by sodium lights, and the air here was damp and smelled of groundwater and rust. Flaking white latex paint that might have once been directions was painted on the walls, the stenciled font practically illegible.

Alexia heard someone, a woman, howl in pain from deeper inside. "I don't want to go, Albert," said Alexia, and she spun around and tried to walk away, but Albert caught her by the scruff of her lab coat and pulled her back. "Let me go," she snapped.

"You'll be fine, Alexia," he said, and he let her go. "You won't be _in_ the cell with her."

They arrived at a door. It was metal, patches of dark brown rust beginning to eat away at the white paint. Albert punched a code into the keypad mounted to the door-handle, and opened it, and they stepped into darkness. Albert turned the lights on, and Alexia saw a woman squatting in the cell beyond a square of one-way Plexiglass, and her ankles were chained to the wall, although the chains were long enough that she could pace her cell if she wanted to. A large IBM terminal occupied the space beneath the window, a single microphone mounted to it. Several closed-circuit monitors were stacked beside the terminal on a four-by-four steel framework, and showed the woman from different angles in grainy black and white. "You don't keep an observation team down here?" she asked.

"Birkin and I _are_ the observation team," said Albert smoothly. There was a light on in Lisa Trevor's cell, a bare incandescent bulb, and her cell was little more than a tiny concrete space with a stained mattress, and a rusting toilet, although, it seemed to Alexia, Lisa didn't care much for the toilet; she seemed to favor the corner, the floor there covered in dark fecal stains. "Absolutely disgusting, isn't it?"

"It's abhorrent," said Alexia, and she shook her head. "Nobody cleans her cell?"

"We've tried."

"Right," said Alexia, and she sat down in the ergonomic chair at the computer terminal. "She rips their faces off." Lisa's back was turned toward her, and she wore a dirty gown, and Alexia could see her skin through holes in the fabric, which was grayish and covered in old dark scabs, and fresh wet ulcers, and showed the lines of her bones. Lisa started to piss in the corner, and Alexia could hear it fizzing on the concrete. She turned to Albert and said, "What could this creature possibly offer? Should bloody kill it, Albert."

"That's the thing," said Albert. "We can't."

"What do you mean you _can't_?"

"Really," said Albert, removing his sunglasses and staring at her with eyes so pale they might have been white. "We can't." He started wiping the lenses of his sunglasses with the hem of his lab coat, a certain strange reverence in his movements. "Nothing kills her, which is why she's caught my and Birkin's interest. Her indestructibility could hold the key to Birkin's G-Virus." His eyes disappeared behind the sunglasses. "You see," he continued, "a team from Umbrella Europe had come here to observe Lisa, and they'd introduced the NE-α prototype to her body. Figured her resilience would make her a prime candidate for Nemesis. It failed. Now it's destroying her, and if we don't stabilize it soon, we're going to lose her."

Lisa wailed in her cell, and Alexia was almost certain she'd heard her cry _momma_. "Nothing harms her? Truly?"

Albert nodded. "Nothing. We've done everything imaginable." He watched Lisa through the window, and then said, "Her resilience is the key to our progenitor research, Alexia. She's the perfect guinea pig. Nothing hurts her. She either incorporates or purges whatever we introduce into her body. With the exception of present circumstances."

"A reuseable specimen," said Alexia, and she nodded.

"We can map her genome as it evolves, Alexia, and changes," he said. "That helps us better understand the effects our viruses have on human genes, which in turn allows us to make our bioweapons research more precise. Gone will be the days of specimens who've mutated beyond viability."

"You're doing all of this to further Birkin's G-Virus research, and not your own?" she asked.

"Birkin's G-Virus is merely a step in the right direction, Alexia. We all benefit from it. _Umbrella_ benefits from it." Albert turned toward the door and said, "I need to finalize the transfer of the T-Veronica prototypes to our lab." He smirked and gestured at the observation window. "I'll leave you with Lisa."

Lisa was still turned away from her, and she was making strange noises. Alexia watched a piece of skin slough away from Lisa's back and drop wetly to the concrete floor, in the puddle of dark urine. "I don't want to stay with Lisa," she said, grimacing. But Albert was gone, and she was alone with Lisa.

The light inside Lisa's cell flickered out, and when it came back on, Alexia nearly fell from her seat: Lisa Trevor was pressed up against the observation glass, and her face was haggard and pale, and greasy-haired, and she stared into nothing from behind the rotting mask of a man's face, her eyes like cloudy pearls in the slits where the man's eyes had once been. "Jesus fucking Christ," said Alexia aloud, and she didn't want to look at Lisa any longer. The longer she stared at Lisa, the more uncomfortable and scared Alexia became, like staring into the darkness of a well, and something was staring back at her, unseen, from the bottom.

Lisa hacked violently, a gob of bloody phlegm oozing down the Plexiglass. "Are you there, Dr. Wesker?" she asked, and Lisa's voice was haunted, tinged with retardation. Lisa's hand rubbed at the glass, smeared blood and grime, and the phlegm there. "I hurt, Dr. Wesker. It hurts. Can you play some music?"

Alexia took a deep breath and pressed the button on the microphone. "Dr. Wesker isn't here, Lisa," she said evenly. On the other side of the glass, Lisa seemed to be staring right at her, although Alexia knew she couldn't see her, because the glass was one-way. But her stare, it was soul-piercing. "My name is Dr. Alexia Ashford. I'm here to fix your condition, Lisa."

"Can you play music, Dr. Alexia?"

"I don't have any music, Lisa," said Alexia.

"Dr. Wesker, he plays music for me sometimes."

Alexia looked over the terminal, fiddling with a few buttons until she'd found the right one. The radio started to play over the sound system, and Toto was singing _Rosanna_. Lisa started dancing to the music, an odd shuffling number, and seeing this creature dancing around to a song like Rosanna was, to Alexia, one of the most frightening things she'd ever seen. Then Lisa stopped suddenly, squatted and pissed in the corner again, and then said, "Play music. From when was little girl, Dr. Alexia."

"I don't have any music from when you were a little girl, Lisa."

Lisa suddenly started wailing, and she threw herself against the wall of her cell, and then she did it again, harder, and screamed. Alexia didn't know what to do. She quickly rifled through the filing cabinets for anything Albert might have left, a note or something, and found a few cassettes. LISA MUSIC was written on one in Albert's careful, precise handwriting. Alexia slotted the tape in the deck on the terminal and pressed PLAY. The Shirelles were singing _Mama Said_ , and instead of dancing, Lisa went inert, sat in the middle of the room and did nothing.

Even when the music eventually stopped, Lisa did not move. Alexia watched another piece of skin slough away from Lisa's back, then another, until there was a little pile on the floor. Alexia found a small notepad and started jotting down her observations for later. Decomposition. Erratic behavior. Mental retardation. Responded positively to first song, then negatively to the second. She heard Lisa cry for her mother again, and she curled up on the floor in her cell and cried.

"Her mother," remarked Alexia to nobody, "certainly holds some significance." She rolled the chair over to the phone and took the handset off the cradle, punching in Birkin's extension. Then she said, before Birkin could say anything, "Is there any archival footage regarding the Trevors, Birkin? I'd like to look at it."

"You're not here to do a fucking history report, Ashford. You're here to help us keep Lisa from falling the fuck apart."

"It could give me a little more insight into the infection's progression, Birkin."

"Ashford, I already narrowed down the problem areas—"

"Birkin."

She heard him sigh on the other end. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"No," she said, "I'm not."

"Yeah, we got footage," said Birkin. "From the early 60s up until now. But you don't have fucking time to view all the tapes, Ashford. Who knows how long we got before Lisa is gone. That NE-α prototype is cooking her down on a cellular level. She's rotting away."

"I'll manage, Birkin."

"Don't you even think," said Birkin, a sharp warning in his voice, "of asking butler boy to help you. That's classified fucking material. We find out you let him watch those tapes, Ashford, your ass is done. Understood?"

"I'm not that stupid," said Alexia. "Make sure you get those tapes, Birkin." She hung up and looked back at the Plexiglass window. She rolled the chair back over. Lisa seemed to be sleeping. "Good," she said to herself, and she left the room.

She was approaching the mansion when Grayson suddenly appeared, grabbing her wrist and pulling her somewhere. "Found something really cool," he said, and they were entering the woods now, twigs crunching under their shoes. "Remember that Impala we'd found at Spencer's party? The one that belonged to George Trevor?"

Alexia had nearly forgotten about the car. She ducked underneath an overhang of leaves, and then they stopped, and she saw Trevor's Impala. With the snow gone, it looked different, somehow more pathetic and sad. "Why are you rooting around in this bloody thing again?" she asked, looking at Grayson.

"Check it out," he said, and he reached through the missing driver-side window, and pulled something from the car. An old book. "It's a journal," he added, handing it to her. "Even has a picture in there."

Alexia opened it. There was a black and white photograph inside that seemed to have been taken during a birthday party. A little girl was in the picture, in a frilly white dress. Lisa Trevor, Alexia guessed. She flipped the photograph over. 1962 was written there, in pen. "You dragged me here to look at an old photo, Grayson?"

"I thought it was pretty cool," said Grayson, defensively. He was wearing the same outfit he'd arrived in: a gray Members Only jacket, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, a Black Sabbath T-shirt, and jeans. "Your grandfather was mentioned in the earlier entries," he added. "Trevor mentioned he was hired to build the Antarctica mansion."

"Grayson, you should leave ghosts where they belong: in the grave." Alexia stuck the photo between the pages of the journal. Then she said, "Forget about George Trevor."

"But Alexia, his fucking car is right here. Mysterious fucking circumstances," said Grayson. He leaned closer, hands in his pockets. "Ain't you a little curious what happened to him?" he asked, conspiratorially.

"No," she said, because she already knew what had happened to George Trevor. "Grayson. Please. Leave it alone."

"You know something," he said, and he poked her between the eyes. "You got that look on your face, Alexia. I know your tells."

"I don't know anything," she lied.

"Alexia. We've known each other since we were babies. You know something."

"We need to get you some new clothes," she said, shifting the subject. "You're wearing the same bloody thing."

"I'm gonna find out what happened to George," he said. "With or without you. But man, Alexia, I'm disappointed." He slapped a hand over his heart. "I thought we were best friends."

"We _are_ best friends—and more," she argued. "But I have a bad feeling about all of this, Grayson."

"It's nearly fall," he said, looking around. "And you know what that means?" Grayson looked at her and grinned. "Halloween, that's what. What better way to kick off the autumn than the Mysterious Disappearance of George Trevor? It'll be like an episode of Elvira's Movie Macabre, Alexia. Where's your sense of fun?"

"My sense of fun left in favor of my sense," she said, walking away.

"You really wanna just walk away like that?"

"I'm not getting involved in this, Grayson. And I suggest you don't either."

"No, I mean, it's dark, Alexia. We're in the middle of the woods."

Alexia stopped dead in her tracks, the back of her neck prickling. "Well, you're going to walk me, aren't you?" she snapped.

"Actually," and she could hear the smirk in Grayson's voice, "I kinda of just want to see you freak out."

" _Grayson_ ," she hissed.

"Fine, fine," he said, and he walked alongside her now. "You're such a wuss."

"We're going into Raccoon City tomorrow, and we're getting you new clothes."

"Can I at least pick the clothes out?"

"Some. But honestly, you need to start dressing for your station."

"You mean the whole fucking suit thing, like dad?"

Alexia spun around to face him, and she wasn't sure why she was so angry. She supposed it was because Grayson knew how to push her buttons, and because he wanted to poke his nose in places it didn't belong. "You represent the Ashfords," she said firmly. "As such, you need to start presenting yourself accordingly, Grayson."

"Alexia, can't you wait a few more years—like when I actually become the butler—to do the whole monkey suit thing?"

"Grayson," she snapped. "It's time to bloody grow up."

He stopped and gave her a strange look. "What the hell is your issue?"

Alexia cooled, and she said evenly, "Tomorrow. Raccoon City. Clothes."

Then Grayson said, and there was something in the polite quality of his voice that deeply bothered her, "As you wish, Miss Ashford."


	20. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - Part 3

Grayson hadn't said much to her, and it was beginning to bother Alexia. She preoccupied herself by thinking about Lisa, and the things she'd read in Birkin's annotations, while Grayson tried on more clothes in the dressing room. Chromosome 2 and 3. Gaps in the DNA bands. A deletion syndrome of some kind, she was sure. Alexia stared at her hands in her lap, and she heard Gary Numan singing _Cars_ over the boutique's sound system.

They left the boutique with two bags: one bag contained shirts and jeans, and a new jacket, and the other contained dress trousers and shirts. A black Bentley idled by the curb; it was one of Spencer's personal cars, which he'd been gracious enough to lend to her while she stayed in Raccoon City.

The driver wore a peaked chauffeur's cap, and a double-breasted suit. He tipped his hat, said, "Ma'am," and took the bags and put them in the trunk, then opened the backseat door for them. The driver climbed behind the wheel once they were inside the car, disappearing behind a partition of opaque Plexiglass.

They drove, the ride smooth; Raccoon City slid silently past their windows, the crowds blurring into the lights of shop windows, of neon adverts and streetlights. Alexia looked at Grayson and said, "You can't give me the cold shoulder forever, Grayson." It always bothered her immensely when Grayson didn't talk to her, and she was starting to get antsy. He didn't look at her. He'd been staring out his window since they'd pulled away from the curb. "Grayson," she said, almost pleadingly. "Would you please talk to me?"

He did talk, and he said to her, "Now you wanna throw around words like 'please'?" Grayson stared at her, and his pale eyes seemed to bore into her skull. The driver had put on the radio, and softly, Annie Lennox sang the chorus to _Sweet Dreams_. "'Cause last night, you were being pretty bitchy."

"I was angry," she said. The Bentley turned right, past several bars and boutiques. An enormous purple neon sign advertised LILLIAN NOIR in stylized cursive, and Alexia supposed it must have been some kind of fashion boutique. "You need to stop poking around things that don't concern you." She frowned, fiddled with the vintage Cartier on her wrist that Alfred had bought her for their thirteenth birthday. "I'm concerned for you, Grayson," she added.

His expression became a little less hard, although he did not smile. "Yeah, I know," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "But I'll be fine, Alexia."

She sighed. Then she asked, "Why do you care so much about George Trevor?"

"I wanna know why his car was out there. Why he'd left all that stuff behind."

"Grayson, who bloody cares?"

"I do," he said, watching her. "I wanna know what happened."

"Grayson," she said angrily. "Let sleeping dogs lie."

"See? This is just a fucking infinite loop with you," he said, looking away again. "Just leave me alone, Alexia."

That hurt more than Alexia thought words ever could; but she left him alone.

When they arrived at the Spencer estate, Grayson carried his bags inside, and then Alexia did not see him for the rest of the night, and she supposed he had probably gone to Clancy's. _Just leave me alone, Alexia_ , something with Grayson's voice said. She stared at her notes, her chest tight and uncomfortable, and then she stared into the microscope, watching the shifting patterns of blood cells and bacteria there. The NE-α bacteria relentlessly attacked Lisa's white blood cells and killed them off, and then the bacteria multiplied, and the white blood cells could not replicate fast enough to stymie the infection.

"Aggressive virus, isn't it?" came Albert's voice, and he'd startled her. "Sorry," he said, and he placed a stack of tapes on the table. "Here's the archival footage you'd wanted, Alexia. Although I can't imagine how it will help you."

Alexia glanced at the tapes, and then she peered into the microscope again. "Thank you, Albert," she said dully.

"You sound a little blue," he remarked.

"I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

Alexia looked up again, and she looked at Albert. He wore a black turtleneck and dress trousers, and in his Ray-Bans and lab coat, and with his perfectly coiffed blond hair, he looked like someone, Alexia decided, who belonged in a synthpop group. "You don't want to hear about my problems, Albert," she said.

Albert leaned against the table and folded his arms, a line of fluorescent light across his sunglasses. "You're right," he said evenly. "But," he continued, after a long pause, "we need your head in the game, Alexia." Albert looked at her. "Best you clear your mind, I think, so you can focus on our work."

She straightened in her stool, staring at the wall, and the charts and diagrams that were pinned there. Then, "Grayson's angry with me."

"Boy troubles," said Albert, smiling hollowly. "How cute."

"He found George Trevor's Impala—well, _we_ found George Trevor's Impala—in the woods."

Albert animated a little, and he removed his sunglasses, chewingly idly on the earpiece. He seemed thoughtful. "You did, did you?" he asked finally, looking sidelong at her. "And what," he continued smoothly, eyes vanishing behind the Ray-Bans, "does Grayson want with George Trevor's Impala?"

Alexia hesitated, and wondered if she should say anything else on the matter. Albert had warned her that if Grayson poked around too much, not only would he be in deep shit, but so would she. "He's just interested in it, I suppose," she said, trying her best to appear aloof. "He likes the car, I suppose. The mystery of it."

"He's not planning to do anything to sate that curiosity, I hope," said Albert.

"No," she lied. "He isn't."

"You need to work on your poker-face, Alexia," said Albert, and he turned toward her, and she watched herself in his sunglasses, and her expression was worried. "I'm sure you'll make _sure_ that Grayson minds his business." He paused, watching her. "Yes?"

She nodded, silently.

"Good," said Albert, and he made a small adjustment to his ID, which was clipped to the lapel of his lab coat. His picture on the ID, she decided, looked like a mug-shot. "That said," he added, "I wouldn't worry too much about this little spat you're having with Grayson. You're teenagers. Prone to moodiness, what with all those hormones bubbling in your bodies. Give him some space, and I'm sure he'll come around."

"I," she hesitated, watching Albert, "wasn't expecting that from you, Albert."

"What were you expecting?"

"I imagined you'd be a lot meaner about it," said Alexia. "'Stop with this nonsense', and all that."

"I do want you to stop with this nonsense," said Albert. "Which is why I'm giving you advice. I need your head down here with us, Alexia," and he gestured at the ceiling, and added, "Not up there, in the clouds."

She nodded.

"That," said Albert, and he squeezed her shoulder, "and I'm not William. I genuinely like you, Alexia." He smiled mechanically, and he took his hand away and added, "You're my protégé. I want to see you do well."

Alexia felt strangely warm, and she found herself smiling. "Thank you, Albert."

"You can thank me by processing Lisa's tissue samples," he said, and he chuckled, starting toward the door. Albert punched his code into the keypad, and the door beeped and opened on its magnetic track with a loud _poosh._ "William and I will be over in the other lab looking over those T-Veronica samples you'd sent, so come find us when you're finished."

"You know," said Alexia out loud, "you really aren't like William."

Albert chuckled. "No, I'm not."

"You played music for Lisa," she said.

Albert scratched his nose, and he said, "I did, yes." Then he left, and the door closed behind him, the rubber gaskets sealing with a hiss. Alexia watched Albert walk past the lab, beyond a rectangle of shatterproof glass, and he glanced at her through the window, then vanished.

Later that night, she'd gone to the makeshift conference room in the laboratory, where, once a week, the bioweapons division would share their latest findings, or their recent improvements, in current B.O.W projects. Alexia cabled the projector to the VCR, ejected a tape labeled NEPTUNE, and started with the earliest tape, labeled JESSICA TREVOR - 1967.

"Strange," said Alexia to herself, as the footage flickered to life on the projection screen, the image fuzzy and somewhat damaged from the process of transcribing it from film to video format. "This is later than George Trevor's disappearance."

"That's because," said another voice, and it was Birkin, "George Trevor didn't disappear in 1962. You found his car, right?" He sat down at the conference table. "He parked it there, Ashford. Spencer had him making some renovations on the estate, around then. Told George he couldn't use his car, he had to use one appointed by Umbrella. Keeping a permanent eye on him, you know? Making sure he didn't talk."

Jessica, dark-haired and pale, stared blankly at the screen, and she was bruised and tired-looking. A calm voice, a scientist voice, said to her, "How are you feeling today, Mrs. Trevor?" Mrs. Trevor—Jessica—did not answer the man.

"And he never made it back to the car," said Alexia, watching as Jessica started to cry and beg the scientist to see her daughter Lisa. _She's only fourteen_ , Jessica sobbed. _She likes The Shirelles—and oh, please, is she all right_? "What happened to Jessica Trevor?" she asked, looking sidelong at Birkin, who was watching the video with an unreadable look.

"You seriously don't know, Ashford? Jesus, they don't tell the Antarctica team shit," said Birkin, and he shook his head. He seemed emotionally sober, for once; there was nothing hostile in his body language, or in his tone, and Alexia wasn't sure how to feel about that. She watched as Birkin took out a pack of Winstons, and light a cigarette with a disposable lighter. Then, "They were using her for 'Type A' progenitor testing," he said around the cigarette, the pack of Winstons disappearing behind the lapel of his lab coat. "Didn't go so well. Scientists killed Jessica and disposed of her body. Put a double in her place, so Lisa wouldn't know. Lisa, she got real hostile when they injected her, but she wasn't deteriorating just then. Developed a weird attachment to her mom." He shook his head and blew smoke. "Not incestuous, just weird. Became fucking obsessed."

"Explains why she'd reacted the way she did to that Shirelle's song. _Mama Said_ ," said Alexia. Then, "I assume the doubles were killed."

"Yeah," said Birkin, scratching the back of his head. "Lisa ripped their fucking faces off—then wore them like goddamn masks. Still has their faces, under her bed in an old shoebox we gave her. Jesus Christ, she won't let the custodians anywhere near them. Not like they'd ever get the fucking chance anyway; she kills them. You saw all the piss and shit in her cell, I bet." He rubbed his thin hands together, then said, "Over time, the tests just wrecked the kid, and she devolved into that fucking troglodyte you saw in Observation. But she's a useful fucking troglodyte, which is why we're trying to stabilize her."

The video continued, and the scientist, a tall man in horn-rimmed glasses, was trying to calm Jessica down, who had become hysterical. He was asking her questions about George, about Lisa, about her condition, and how, would you kindly tell me, ma'am, it was making her feel. Alexia ejected the tape; there was nothing useful. "Useful for your G-Virus research," she said.

"Exactly," said Birkin, and he smiled meaninglessly around his cigarette, which had started to smolder in his mouth. He put it out in the ash tray on the conference table, and said, "And you're helping me make my dream come true, Ashford."

"Birkin, I have several tapes I'd like to review," said Alexia evenly, ignoring his attempt to goad her. "What do you want?"

"Remember those blood samples you'd taken from butler boy, couple of months ago? We sequenced copies of his DNA."

"And?" she said.

"Bingham's virus re-writes DNA sequences in real-time," said Birkin, watching her. "But it was fucking tailored, specifically, for butler boy's DNA, so it'll do nothing for Lisa except maybe kill her quicker, or do nothing at all—"

"Get to the fucking point, Birkin," said Alexia.

"We were hoping you'd have some ideas."

Alexia smiled smugly. "Oh, this is delicious," she said. "You want to hear _my_ ideas."

"Shut up, Ashford," said Birkin, scowling. "Now you got any ideas, or am I wasting my time here?"


	21. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - Part 4

Albert was in the lab, staring at X-ray sheets of DNA bands tacked to the lightboard. When they came inside, he turned toward her and asked, "Did Birkin fill you in, Alexia?" Birkin wandered over to Albert, who handed him an oak tag folder, and he sat down at a nearby table, leafing through the papers inside with intense concentration.

"A little," said Alexia, and she glanced at the X-rays. "The latest sequence?"

"Indeed. Chromosal deletion syndrome," said Albert, idly rubbing the pads of his thumb and finger together. "It's bad. It's no longer affecting just chromosomes 2 and 3. Larger parts of chromosome 4 are also being affected."

She pushed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and looked at Birkin, who was tapping something out on the computer. "Albert and I have been running projection simulations," said Birkin, and Alexia watched karyotype unfold in bright lattices on the monitor, and Birkin was staring intently at them, his mouth a hard, thin line. "And if things keep going the way they're going?" He shook his head, and said, "Shit, Lisa'll be gone in a month, maybe a month and half. Fucking assholes, up in Umbrella Europe. All because of their stupid fucking NE-α prototype. They're not testing this shit thoroughly enough."

"They expected Lisa to remain unaffected," said Alexia, tipping her head on one side. "After all, she shrugged off everything we'd thrown at her." She remembered, then, Jessica's worn face, and she said, "Not like Jessica."

"Stop talking like you know what you're talking about, Ashford," said Birkin irritatedly, staring hard at her. He put his hands on his knees and leaned forward in his chair, the plastic frame creaking with the movement. "You weren't even born when they were running those fucking tests on the Trevors."

"And you were bloody five-years-old when they were running those tests, Birkin."

"Stop," warned Albert, looking between them. "Right now."

"Right," said Alexia, and she stopped. "Anyway," she continued, concentrating on the matter at hand now, "I've been thinking. We could create a new strain of Bingham's virus through recombination with the retrovirus, and consequently produce a more potent strain that will, in theory, eradicate the NE-α-infected cells."

"Reprogram the new virus to specifically target the NE-α-infected cells," said Birkin, scratching his cheek. He looked at Albert, and asked, "What do you think?"

"It's something," said Albert, and he shrugged. "We'll need to run a few tests."

"Bingham's virus is designed to bolster the immune system, and the retrovirus will help it spread," said Alexia. "On its own, the retrovirus doesn't do anything. Think of it like an inert vehicle. It doesn't move until something drives it."

"Hey, and it if fails," said Birkin, and he snickered, "we just fucking blame Ashford."

Alexia went back to the conference room, and she pushed the next tape into the VCR, labeled LISA TREVOR – 1969. She sat down and watched the fuzzy images unfold on the projection screen. In the video, Lisa still looked human, but she was empty-eyed and soft-spoken, and seemed, in the video, waxen and corpse-like. Lisa stared vacantly at the camera, dark crescents under her eyes. Alexia heard the scientist from the Jessica Trevor video, and he said, "Your mother is on her way, Lisa. Don't worry."

"Mama," said Lisa quietly, and she touched her lips with her fingers, and they were bloody, as though she'd been clawing at a wall. Her dark hair was a tangled mess, and there was a smattering of fresh purplish-red bruises on her face. "I want mama."

"She's coming, dear," said the scientist. He started speaking to the camera then, rattling off his observations: _Subject is exhibiting early signs of catatonia, recommend upping Type-B dosage_. The scientist, Alexia decided, sounded like one of those narrators from 1960s educational films. _Extensive contusions on the face,_ continued the scientist. _Recommend restraints, next round_. Then Alexia heard a woman say, from somewhere off-screen, "Oh, Lisa dear. I'm here."

Lisa's face remained expressionless. Then she cried, "You're not mama," and Lisa got up, and Alexia heard the woman scream. The scientist shouted, all the calmness gone from his voice, "Good God, she's ripping her—get her restrained!" Then the scientist screamed, too, and then he gurgled, and the video cut out.

Alexia ejected the tape and put in the next. This one was from 1972, and Lisa looked nothing like the Lisa in the last video. Her face had deformed, the features asymmetrical and drooping like a stroke victim's. The voice in the video was a female voice, and she said to Lisa, "How are you feeling today, Lisa?"

"Want friends," said Lisa, and she was chained to her chair. A string of drool dripped from the corner of her mouth, onto the table she sat at. "Need keep safe. Mama wants her face." She started hyperventilating, and Lisa said, "Mama needs face. Needs face. Needs face." Lisa spoke the words like an invocation, and she started to sweat. "Need friends. They know her face. Mama's face. They keep it safe."

The female scientist said, "You can have your friends back after this session, Lisa." Alexia could hear the nervousness in the woman's voice. Lisa started to rattle the chair, and she cried for her mother. "Lisa, you need to stop," said the female scientist.

"Want mama, want mama, want mama," cried Lisa, still rattling and thumping the chair as though she'd been possessed. "Want mama face so can give back to mama because mama sad without it. Want mama, want mama, want mama—"

Alexia stopped the video, and realized her heart was pounding. "Enough of that," she said, and she reluctantly started on the next video. Lisa's condition became progressively worse in each video, until, by the time Alexia had reached the most recent tape, Lisa had decomposed into the thing that pissed and shit in its cell, and wore a dead man's face like a Halloween mask. Even so, Alexia couldn't help but feel a modicum of sympathy for the beast.

It was a cool night when Alexia emerged from Arklay, and she imagined she smelled autumn in the air. She found Grayson sitting on the porch in front of the estate, and she'd only known he'd been there because she'd smelled his cigarette. "I told you to stop smoking those," she said, scowling. Fog had settled over the woods, fuzzed Grayson's shape, the cherry of his cigarette like a tiny lighthouse beacon. "Grayson, put it out."

"Can you," he said, although he did put his cigarette out, "stop fucking riding me, Alexia?"

She sighed, and said, "I'm sorry."

Grayson stared at her. The remains of the cigarette smoldered on the step.

"I don't want to fight, Grayson," said Alexia.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and stared straight ahead.

"Grayson."

"You know George Trevor's from New York?"

"Grayson, I don't bloody care about George Trevor," she said. "I'm talking about us right now."

Grayson sighed, and he said, "I know. It's just—I don't want to fight either, Alexia."

She sat down beside him on the porch and stared at the smear of cigarette ash on the step, watching the last embers flicker out. A chilly early September wind blew, and it carried the smell of autumn; and Alexia knew, then, that summer, although it had not officially ended yet, might as well have been over. "Then let's stop fighting," said Alexia, without looking at him, drawing her legs up and looping her arms around her knees.

"Okay," he said, and he smiled at her, for the first time in a while.

"How did you find out where George Trevor had lived?" she asked.

"Went to the Raccoon City Public Library and did some research. Found an article about George Trevor in some microfilm, from the late 50s. Mentioned it," said Grayson, and he shrugged. "Had a place in Manhattan. Did a little more digging, and it turns out our man didn't disappear until around 1967. The case is cold. Police questioned some Umbrella suits, but got nothing. Spencer gave his condolences to George's family."

"You didn't tell anyone about his car, did you?" she asked.

Grayson shook his head, tracing the seam in his jeans. "Why bother?" he said. "Besides," he hesitated, worried, "Birkin said if I went blabbing, I'd be in deep shit. I backed off. I don't want to get you in trouble, Alexia."

"Probably best you heed Birkin's advice," said Alexia.

"I just know there's more there," said Grayson, frowning. "Just wanna know what happened to the guy."

Alexia looked at him. "He's probably dead."

"Yeah," said Grayson. "Maybe. Or maybe he's like Professor Falken in WarGames. Living on some island somewhere, under an assumed name." He beamed.

"Doubtful," said Alexia, and she stood, ruffling his hair and smiling. "Let's go to sleep, Grayson." She bent down and kissed the top of his head, and added, "It's been a long day for me."


	22. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - Part 5

Everyone was panicking when she'd gone down to Arklay, and she'd spent thirty minutes arguing with George Alias that he needed to let her through the security gate, fuck the lock-down, she was one of the bloody researchers. Eventually, George let her through and warned her that, if Birkin or Wesker said anything, it was on her, not him. Alexia didn't answer him, proceeding to the laboratory, researchers, and a few U.S.S guards in tactical gear, moving past her.

She found Birkin in the security office, and he was talking to the security chief. The chief's ID, clipped to the breast pocket of his tactical vest, gave his name as John Hunkin. He was tall, and his hair was white-blond and shaved on the sides, and his eyes were the color of cloudy water. John Hunkin had a harsh face too, like something someone had carved from a rock with a machete.

Birkin and him were looking at security feeds, and John said, "Goddamn researchers. What the fuck were you thinking, Dr. Birkin?" His voice had a gravelly quality, like he was gargling rocks. It was a voice that should have belonged to some long-time elderly smoker, and not John Hunkin, who only looked twenty-five, maybe twenty-six. Alexia watched them, staying quiet. "You didn't sedate her?"

"We did," argued Birkin, and he scowled at John. "Didn't do shit."

"Should have upped the dosage. Or called us, the people who actually trained for this sort of shit," said John, folding his arms across his broad chest. "Now we got a fucking B.O.W running around. Could be anywhere. Got my guys looking for her, but—"

"What happened?"

They both looked at her. John said, "Ah, Dr. Ashford. Nothing really. Just Lisa Trevor got out of her fucking cell." He stared at Birkin, then, and he didn't stop staring. John seemed like he could hold that stare forever, and not blink once. "Go on, Birkin. Tell her."

Alexia stared at them, and she said, "Lisa Trevor got out?"

"You fucking deaf, Ashford?" said Birkin, impatiently. "Yeah, she did." He paused, pushed his hands into the pockets of his lab coat, and he rolled his neck, the bone popping audibly. "Fucking shit. Annette's freaking out."

"She should be," said Hunk smoothly.

"How the fuck," began Alexia, staring at Birkin now, "did she get out of her bloody cell?"

"Oh you know, Ashford. We asked Lisa if she wanted to go out for a walk," said Birkin, and he closed his mouth and clenched his teeth, the muscle in his jaw flexing. In the glow of the monitors, his skin glistened with sweat. Then he raised his voice suddenly and said, "What do you fucking think happened? And you're supposed to be a genius?" His hair seemed to bristle, and it was damp with sweat. She noticed, then, the blood on his lapel. "We were trying to take a tissue sample from her, and we got overpowered. Albert, he got injured. I was lucky."

"Is Albert all right?" asked Alexia, concerned.

"Yeah, he'll be okay," said Birkin, bobbing his head. "Lisa broke his arm, and took a nice chunk out of him, but he's stable. He's recovering in the infirmary."

"He's not infected?" Alexia really hoped Albert wasn't infected. Protocol dictated that infected personnel were disposed of, and she didn't want to see him die. Birkin must have seen the worry on her face, and he shook his head. "Oh, thank goodness," said Alexia, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"He's clean," said Birkin out loud. "The doctors treated him."

"Lucky him," said Hunkin, and Alexia watched him walk over to a gear locker, a small room sectioned off by chain-link, and he punched his code into the keypad, opened the door when it beeped, and stepped inside. She saw him take a rifle from the racks, a second side-arm, a knife, and a few additional pieces of tactical gear. He put on a helmet, and the helmet made her think of a red-eyed fly. "We're sure she's not in the lab anymore," said Hunkin, his voice modulated by the mask. "More people would've wound up in the infirmary." He closed the gear locker and punched the code in again. "My guess is she used the maintenance tunnels."

It struck Alexia then, and she said, "She wants her mother. Maybe she went to find her?"

"Her mom's fucking dead. Been dead for nearly two decades, Ashford," said Birkin, and he shook his head.

"Lisa's insane, and doesn't understand that," said Alexia, frowning.

"Jessica Trevor's nothing but bones now," argued Birkin. "She's gone in hazard disposal. Been gone, Ashford."

Hunkin said, "Look, love to stay and chat," and his tone conveyed that he did not, in fact, want to chat at all, "but I got a fucking job to do." He took the radio off his belt, thumbed the switch, and said, "This is Hunkin. Do you copy? Give me a status report," and he left.

"Look, I got work to do, reports to send to Spencer and the Board. Hunkin's on the case, and he's good at what he does. Lisa'll be back in no time," said Birkin, and he started to walk away. "Might want to check up on your boyfriend, Ashford," he added. "He's been poking his nose in places it doesn't belong, and maybe Lisa found him." Birkin smiled without any warmth, and was gone.

Alexia hurried back to the mansion. She found Grayson in her room, and he was hanging out the bay window, watching something. She came over, saw flashlights below, heard the occasional burst of someone's radio. "Who are those guys?" asked Grayson, tracking their movements with his eyes until they'd gone into the woods, and neither of them could see them anymore. Alexia heard, distantly, a jeep, and people shouting.

"Umbrella Security Service," said Alexia, and she sat on the windowsill, among the throw pillows.

"So they like... guard this place?" asked Grayson.

"Yes," said Alexia, and she gently pushed him away from the window, and then she latched it shut. "They work out of Arklay," she added.

"Did something happen?"

"Don't worry about it," said Alexia, and she kissed him. "Just stay indoors, all right? At least at night."

"You tell me not to worry about it, then tell me not to go outside," said Grayson, frowning. "Something stinks."

"It's just—something did happen, but I can't talk about it. Just listen to me, Grayson. For once." She placed her hand on the back of his neck and coaxed his head down, kissing him again. "It's for your safety," she added, and she pecked the corner of his mouth and smiled. "All right?"

"Fine," he said, and he frowned.

"If you go to Raccoon," said Alexia, "take the Ecliptic. I can get you a temporary pass."

"Okay," he said, and he sat down beside her, and held her hand. "You really can't say anything about it?" Grayson looked at her.

"No," she said, and she shook her head. "Umbrella business."

"Everything is Umbrella business with you."

"Well, of course," said Alexia, because he should have known that by now. "I work for them." Then she leaned in closer, and she remembered this movie she saw once, and she awkwardly straddled Grayson's lap, tentatively at first, with only one leg, and then with the other. Their crotches brushed together, and she blushed, wondering if maybe Scott was right, she acted a little too adult sometimes. "But not everything is Umbrella business," she said, and she looked at him, and she kissed him again, this time longer, trying to imitate that scene from Risky Business, when Joel and Lana kiss on the train, except without the sex.

Grayson laughed, grinning up at her. "What are you doing?" he said, and his eyes were twinkling.

Alexia blushed, her face burning. "I'm not even sure," she said, and she felt Grayson's hand snake underneath her and squeeze her butt. She jumped, and he laughed again. "I'm sorry," she said quickly, and she sat beside him, staring into her lap, at the patterns on her skirt. "I just—I'm sorry."

"Relax," said Grayson, and he kissed her cheek. "I won't make fun of you too hard."

"If Scott—"

"Dad ain't here, and neither is Alfred," said Grayson.

Alexia nodded, and she looked searchingly at him. "Did... did you like it?" she asked awkwardly.

"Of course I did," he said. "But no need to go rushing stuff."

She nodded again. "It doesn't bother you?" she asked. "Clancy, he's already—"

"I'm not Clancy, and you and I, our situation's different," said Grayson. "As dad would say, 'If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off too?'"

Alexia chuckled, and she said, "All right, all right. You're right."

"Wish I could have recorded that," said Grayson, grinning. "You never tell me I'm right." He glanced back at the window, then looked at her. "You're not the teensiest curious about what the U.S.S is up to?"

"Grayson. Stop."

"I'm just—"

"Stop," said Alexia, firmly.

He nodded. "Okay."


	23. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - Part 6

Down in Arklay, Alexia tested older tissues samples in the laboratory, then recombined them with the retrovirus, which she'd isolated from the T-Veronica genome. Her theory showed promise, but Alexia needed a fresher tissue sample to be sure, and there was no telling when Hunkin and his team would bring Lisa back, if they could even bring Lisa back without killing her.

She stopped by the infirmary to see Albert. He lay in the bed, his arm in a sling, a large square of gauze taped over his abdomen, where Lisa, Alexia had found out later from the infirmary doctor, had nearly disemboweled him.

"Things are looking good regarding my recombination proposal," said Alexia, and she pushed her hands into her lab coat pockets, watching Albert and deciding that it didn't really go together, the bed and him. Albert wasn't an idle man, and in that bed, he was as idle as someone who was comatose. "But," she said, and Alexia sat in the chair beside his bed, "I'll need a newer tissue sample. The ones in the lab aren't very good, and they're all pre-NE-α." Alexia tipped her head on one side, and said, "Seriously, did you have one of the bloody interns extract the tissue? It's barely viable, Albert."

"Tissue doesn't stay viable for long, once you've taken it out of cryostorage," said Albert, and he looked at her with his pale eyes, and it was strange seeing him without his sunglasses, like someone who'd had two arms yesterday but now only had one. There was a purplish-yellow bruise under his right eye.

"Or perhaps someone's bloody mishandling the tissue," said Alexia, and she stood, hit the tap on the water cooler and filled one of the paper cones that served as cups. She drank, then crumpled the cone and tossed it into a nearby rubbish bin. "Do you think Hunkin will manage to get her?" she asked. "Birkin seems confident."

"The security chief is very good at his work, Alexia," said Albert, and he shifted uncomfortably in the bed, wincing. "My abdomen hurts," he added, the corners of his eyes pinched with pain. "They're worried about an infection, so they're keeping me here to monitor my condition. I just want to go back to work."

"Birkin said you were clean."

"So did the doctors, but apparently they're having second thoughts."

A nurse came over and told her to go, and Alexia did. She stopped in front of the infirmary window, and she looked at Albert through the shatterproof glass, and he looked back at her. She smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. Albert returned the gesture with his good hand, and the nurse came stiffly to the window and closed the blinds.

When she returned to the mansion, Alexia couldn't find Grayson anywhere. He wasn't in her room; he wasn't in the piano room, where he'd often gone to play music; he wasn't in the kitchen, or the dining room. She went outside into the rain, and down the path toward The Residence, and into the bar where the on-site staff liked to gather for drinks and locker-room conversation. Alexia knew Grayson liked to play pool here, usually with Jimmy The Feeder.

It smelled of stale beer and cigarettes, and Toto was singing _Africa_ on the jukebox. Only a handful of researchers were at the bar, and they were mostly silent. Alexia rarely ever saw a bartender here, and she wondered if the researchers just helped themselves to the liquor. She didn't drink, not really, so she didn't know.

Alexia went upstairs, where the battered pool-table sat, and she found Jimmy and George Alias playing a game. Jimmy looked mad, and Alexia guessed he was losing. He wore his stained white coveralls, unzipped to the navel. "You're a fuckin' cheat, man," said Jimmy, and he sank one of the balls in the corner pocket. "Like Steve. Fuck Steve."

"Now why do you always do that?" asked George Alias, and off-duty, he seemed more relaxed, spoke very mildly. He leaned over the pool-table and took his shot, sinking a ball in another corner pocket. "You always call people a cheat whenever you lose, Jimmy," he said. "Face it, kid, you're just a terrible player."

"Man, fuck you," said Jimmy, and he laughed. He stopped, finally noticing her, holding the cue like a spear. "Dr. Ashford, how's it goin'?" He tipped his head on one side. "Where's Grayson? Punk owes me another game."

"One you're going to lose," said George, and he shook his head.

"I was hoping you could tell me," said Alexia, and she frowned. "Grayson hasn't been here?"

"He was here earlier," said Jimmy, scratching his cheek. He reminded her of Ralph Macchio. "Played a game right before I'd started my shift," he added. "Said he'd back to play another, 'cause he cheated."

"He didn't cheat. You just lost," said George, exasperatedly.

"Did he say anything else?" asked Alexia.

"Something about seein' a friend," said Jimmy, and he shrugged. He leaned over the pool-table and positioned his cue, and he took his shot. He didn't sink any balls. They rolled around pointlessly on the duct-taped baize, and George was laughing. "Jesus fuck," he grumbled.

Alexia knew the friend was Clancy, and she took the Ecliptic into Raccoon City. It was getting late, and Alexia didn't want Grayson running around; Lisa was still out there. She arrived at the brownstone Clancy lived in, and she trotted up the steep concrete stoop and knocked on the door. She waited, the rain pattering on her umbrella. The streetlights were beginning to flicker on, the world a thunderstorm blue. Someone moved on the other side of the door, and then the door opened. Annette Birkin stared at her.

"Alexia?" said Annette, as though she'd never seen her before. Clancy's little brother Sean was watching them from the hallway, and he looked, Alexia decided, a bit like the Mad magazine boy. "What are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you that question," said Alexia.

"My sister Fiona lives here," she said. Then Annette lowered her voice, and said, "With this Lisa Trevor shit going on, I needed some time away from the laboratory and took a few vacation days. Have they heard from Hunkin? Someone killed a jogger on the hiking trails, and I'd bet it was Lisa; it was on the news."

Alexia shook her head. "If they have, they haven't told me."

Annette sighed. Then, "I guess you're looking for Grayson?"

Alexia nodded. "Is he here?"

"No," said Annette, and she frowned, leaning against the door-frame. She folded her arms across her chest. She wore a Talking Heads T-shirt, tucked into the waistband of blue jeans. "Clancy said they were going to Game Palace."

"Thank you, Annette."

"No problem," said Annette, and she paused. "And Alexia?" she hesitated. "Sorry. About giving you a hard time in the past. Bill, he—"

"He's an asshole, I know," said Alexia, and she left without waiting for Annette's reply.

She went to Game Palace, but didn't see Grayson at any of his usual games. The arcade was brimming with high-school seniors, and Alexia had to fight her way to the concession stand. "Hello, excuse me," she practically shouted to the girl behind the counter. It was loud in here with everyone talking, with the pings and the explosions of the games going off at regular intervals. It was like the arcade, Alexia decided, was someone's head, and she was inside it, listening to the chatter of their thoughts, and the loud synaptic bursts of their neurons, which came as Peter Gunn MIDIs, the garbled approximations of explosions, the pings and dings of imaginary laser beams. The girl did not seem to hear her, and Alexia said, much louder, "Hello, I have a question!"

The girl heard her this time, and looked directly at her. "What can I get you?"

"No, not looking for food," said Alexia, and she tried to hide her disgust. She wouldn't, not in a million years, ever eat arcade food. The smell of the popcorn and the hot dogs mingling together was making her nauseous. "I'm looking for someone. A boy. He's mildly tan. Very tall," and Alexia stretched her arm up to demonstrate. "He has dark, wavy hair," she continued, like a cop describing a suspect. "Really, really pale gray eyes. He came in with a red-headed boy."

"You mean Grayson and Clancy?" said the girl, and it surprised Alexia that she knew them. Although she supposed it shouldn't be too surprising; Grayson and Clancy spent unhealthy amounts of time in the arcade, and they'd probably gotten acquainted with the staff. "I guess you're Alexia. Grayson talks a lot about you."

"Yes," said Alexia, and she smiled. "Has he been here?"

The girl nodded. "You just missed him," she said. "He left with Clancy. Heard them mention something about an Impala?"

Alexia's stomach did a flip. "How long ago?" she asked.

"Twenty, maybe thirty minutes ago," said the girl behind the till.

Alexia went to the payphone and called for Spencer's driver.

When they arrived at the mansion, Alexia ran into the woods, the driver calling after her and telling her to come back. She tried not to think that it was dark out, that she was alone in the woods behind the mansion, and that Grayson could possibly be hurt, or even worse. She ducked under an overhang of leaves. She'd dropped her umbrella somewhere, and she was drenched now, her loafers and stockings spattered with mud. She tripped over something solid, and went headlong into the mud.

The thing she'd tripped over was a body, one of Hunkin's men, and he'd been mangled. She couldn't see his face under the mask, but was sure the expression underneath was frozen in fear, wide-eyed and waxen, like the faces of dead people in movies. His right arm had been torn off, and lay a few feet from his body in the underbrush. Alexia climbed to her feet and ran, slipping on the mud.

Alexia reached the Impala, but she didn't find Grayson. She did find a few footprints in the mud that she was sure matched Grayson's Nikes, although the rain had washed most of the prints way. They seemed to be going south. "Shit," she said, and she went south. She found a piece of denim that had been torn on a branch. Some of the trees here were badly damaged, as though something heavy, like a blunt hatchet, had been swung into them. Alexia knew it wasn't a hatchet; it had probably been Lisa. She'd found Grayson, and she'd chased him, smashing everything that had gotten in her way.

She came to a steep rocky hill, and something had definitely rolled down the hillside; the rocks had been disturbed, and some were spattered with blood. Her heart was pounding, her blood like a surging ocean in her ears. There was no body at the bottom of the hill. _Good_ , Alexia thought. Carefully, Alexia made her way down the slope, tearing her cardigan on the shale. At one point, the rocks had suddenly shifted, and she'd slid down and cut her legs. Her shins were burning, her stockings spotted with blood.

Alexia kept walking, along an old hiking trail that curved through the woods. It was dark, and she wasn't sure where she was going, and she was scared. She knew the local kids sometimes came back here to ride dirt-bikes; Grayson had once ridden Clancy's dirt-bike here, and he'd turned too sharply and had flown sideways from the bike, and he'd only walked away with a few bad cuts and bruises.

The dirt ramps had been reduced to mudbanks, and she'd found trash—beers, plastic soda bottles, candy bar wrappers, crumpled cigarette packs—scattered among the underbrush. As she walked a little farther, she found another one of Hunkin's men. He was lying on his side, and his mask was gone. The whole right side of his face had been ripped away.

Alexia looked at his gun. She'd thought about taking the first guard's gun, but had decided it wouldn't really matter. Guns wouldn't kill Lisa. The only thing killing Lisa right now was the NE-α type.


	24. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - Part 7

Alexia continued further down the hiking trail. Eventually, she came across an overgrown set of railroad tracks, probably an old route the Ecliptic had once taken in its days as a logging train, and the grass was beginning to turn brown as September slowly displaced August. It was still raining, and she was soaked all the way through, her clothes sticking uncomfortably to her skin. She followed the tracks to a jeep wreckage.

One of Hunkin's men had been thrown from the jeep, his legs bent awkwardly, pieces of bone poking through the flesh. The other body was slumped over the wheel; he'd been impaled by the steering column. Alexia wasn't sure if they'd simply lost control of the jeep, or if Lisa had been responsible for the crash.

She walked on, her legs aching, and she was shivering. It was pitch black, and the temperature had dropped, and her fingers were numb. She kept trying to warm them by thrusting them into her cardigan, but it brought no relief.

She found an abandoned train car, graffiti scrawled over it, and that made her happy; it meant this was a place that people knew about. Something moved in the car. She came to a dead stop. Then she saw a flashlight snap on, and it was Hunkin.

"Get inside now, Dr. Ashford," said Hunkin, and he roughly grabbed her by the arm and dragged her aboard the train. Rain pattered on the roof, and the car smelled of rust, of decay and moth-eaten leather. Grayson sat inside, and when he saw her, his face lit up.

He didn't say anything. He hugged her, and she hugged him back, and then he kissed her for a long time. Grayson had suffered a few bad cuts and bruises, but they were already beginning to heal. "Got pretty banged up," said Grayson finally, as he peeled his lip from hers. "Guess I'm just a fast healer."

 _No_ , she told herself. _It's Bingham's virus_. "I'm so glad you're safe," said Alexia, and she peppered his chin and jaw with kisses. She looked at Hunkin. "This is where you've been? Holed up in a train?"

"Lisa's still out there somewhere. Been chasing her away with the gun; she doesn't like guns. I think the loudness unsettles her," said Hunkin, and he was staring out the window. "Getting kind of low on ammo. Looted what I could from my men." His mask sat on one of the ancient chairs; the right lens had been cracked badly. Hunkin had a deep cut on his cheek, a deep gouge on his chin, and a few dark bruises; but he otherwise seemed okay. "She was just here, not too long before you showed up," he added dryly. "You're fucking lucky, Dr. Ashford."

"Where's Clarence?" she asked Grayson.

"How'd you know—you know what, never mind." Grayson shook his head, and he said, "He got away. I distracted Lisa so he could run. After all, it was my fault; I dragged him here." He paused and clasped his hands between his knees. Then, "What the fuck is Lisa? Some kind of escaped mutant? I know there's a hospital not too far from here. Maybe they're conducting illegal experiments. Maybe it's some kind of fucking radiation sickness."

"Do you think she's far?" Alexia asked Hunkin, shifting the conversation away from the topic of illegal experiments.

"Hard to say," said Hunkin, and he sat down, his finger permanently on the trigger of his gun. "Every time we've tried to leave, she just gets in our way. Makes me wonder if she's playing a game with us."

"Doubtful," said Alexia, and she sat beside Grayson.

"Man," said Grayson, "I'm starving."

"Kid, I just gave you a fucking candy bar," said Hunkin.

"One measly candy bar," said Grayson, and he frowned, patting his stomach. "I'm a growing boy."

"You're a big fucking boy," agreed Hunkin, and he went to light a cigarette, but stopped. He shook his head and put it away. "Smoke might attract her," he grunted. "How big are you anyway, kid?" he asked Grayson. "You're what? Fifteen?"

"I'm 6'2, I think."

"Jesus," said Hunkin. "You're gonna be a big motherfucker. Maybe 6'5. Maybe bigger."

"What dad tells me." Grayson grinned proudly. "My dad, he's about 6'5."

"You work out?" asked Hunkin conversationally. "If you don't, you should. Could probably do damn good in sports. Boxing, maybe. You look like a boxer, kid."

"Boxing sounds cool. Like Rocky Balboa," said Grayson, and he threw a few jabs at the air for emphasis. Then, to her, "Hey, Alexia. How tall are you anyway? Since we're talking about heights."

"Must we really engage in such banal conversation?"

"Just answer the fucking question," said Grayson, grinning. "Not like we're going anywhere anytime soon," he added. "It's either we talk, or we just stare at the windows until that ugly bitch comes back."

"5'6, last I'd checked," she said blandly.

"And you're only thirteen, right?" asked Hunkin.

Alexia nodded.

"You're going to be a tall woman, Alexia," said Hunkin, and he took out his cigarette again and put it in his mouth; though he didn't light it.

Alexia shivered. Grayson took off his denim jacket and draped it over her.

Hunkin looked between them, and he said, "For a couple of kids, you got a pretty grown-up relationship going on."

"I love her," said Grayson matter-of-factly.

"You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," said Grayson, staring at Hunkin.

"How about you?" he asked her.

"I love Grayson," said Alexia automatically. She didn't even have to think about it.

Hunkin nodded. "Then you two got something most adults don't even have," he remarked. "You hold on to that, kids." He paused and looked out the window. Alexia heard something, a noise, outside, and Hunkin cursed. "Shit," he said, and he rose from his chair. The noise became more pronounced. It was a woman screaming for her mother, and her voice was like a scrape. "You kids stay down," he said, and Hunkin fired a few shots out the window. The woman screamed again. "Think this bitch has some kind of fucking attachment to this train."

"Or she just wants to kill us," said Grayson, crouching down beside her. He kept one arm around her, and he said, "I'll keep you safe, Alexia. If things get bad, and Hunkin can't hold her back, you run, and I'll keep her busy."

"You're a bloody idiot," she said to him.

He kissed her cheek, and said, "I'm a fast runner."

"Mama!" cried Lisa, and she was coming closer; Alexia could hear her chains rattling, the scrape of her feet against the ground.

"Wait," said Alexia, a thought suddenly dawning on her. She wriggled out from under Grayson's arm. "An attachment." She started crawling on her hands and knees, looking under seats. Hunkin fired another couple of shots.

"Hunkin," said Alexia, "do you know anything about this train?"

"How the fuck should I know?" he said, and he emptied his clip, ejected, and loaded a fresh one. Lisa screamed. "Know the last time a train traveled this way was in the 60s, right after Umbrella built the Stoneville-Raccoon route and shut this one down." He fired three more shots out the window, and said, "But this isn't the fucking time for a history lesson, Dr. Ashford."

She found an old doll underneath one of the chairs. It was stained and broken, and most of its dress had rotted away. "Throw this outside," said Alexia, and she handed the doll to Grayson, who gave her an odd look. "It's just a gut feeling," she added.

Grayson nodded, and he went to the door and lobbed the doll as hard as he could. Lisa squealed, and she almost sounded delighted. "She's gone," said Hunkin, and he let out a sigh of relief. "And I think for good this time."

"I'd wager her mother gave her that doll," said Alexia. "Lisa was on this train as a girl," she added, and she stood. "But why? Where was she going?" She paused, and she looked at Hunkin. "You'd said Umbrella closed this route down after they'd built the Stoneville-Raccoon rail. Yes?"

"That's right," said Hunkin, and he put on his mask.

"Did the train, at that time, go to Arklay?"

"Think so," said Hunkin, and he started securing the various clasps and straps of his mask. "Couldn't say for sure. Know it used to go up to Stoneville, and Stoneville Park. Park used to host the Autumn Fair."

Grayson stared at them, confused. "Don't worry about it," said Alexia to Grayson, and she ruffled his hair. He grunted at her. She smiled.

"Think it's safe to go back to the Spencer estate?" asked Grayson.

Hunkin leaned out the window, and he said, "Yeah. Think she's moved on."


	25. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - Part 8

Back at the mansion, Hunkin said to her, "Going to drop by the infirmary, Dr. Ashford." He took off his mask and wiped his sweaty forehead on the sleeve of his U.S.S fatigues. In the light, Hunkin looked worse. Alexia could see every little bruise and cut: some of the bruises were deep, painful-looking purples, and others had started to yellow and green; the cuts were bright red with infection and beginning to scab black. As he walked, she noticed Hunkin seemed to favor his right leg. "Once I get the all-clear from the doctors," said Hunkin, his cigarette-roughened, too-old voice rumbling in his throat, "I'll head back out with some better gear and get the bitch myself. Fuck the others. 'Want something right, do it yourself'. Incompetent assholes, Dr. Ashford. Next round of rookies better have some fucking balls. You know one of 'em actually cried? Deserved getting his arm ripped off."

"He reminds me of John Wayne," said Grayson quietly, watching Hunkin limp steadily away, then vanish through a door. "Jesus. It's hilarious." He splayed his fingers across his chest, and said, "Bet he's got chest hair on his chest hair."

Alexia smiled and said, "Shut up."

Grayson leaned over and pecked her on the lips. "I'm gonna shower," he said, and he turned around and went upstairs.

A shower sounded like a good idea.

Once she'd gotten her shower, Alexia re-watched the Trevor tapes, hoping to find something pertinent to her investigation—a devil in the details. Nothing so easy, however; she'd turned up nothing. All of the tapes were related to Lisa's Q and As with the research team, and nothing at all related to her life before Umbrella. Though Alexia supposed it wasn't that surprising; if there had been family tapes from that time, Umbrella had probably destroyed them. After all, she thought, it was standard protocol: destroy all evidence, and wait for the police to get bored.

Alexia would have asked Birkin or Albert about the train and the old Stoneville-Raccoon route, but they'd been young children when the rail had closed; and Alexia wasn't even sure if they had been natives of the area. Birkin had something distinctly East Coast in his accent like Grayson, and Albert sounded like he might have come from a Welsh family.

She thought of asking Scott about the old Stoneville-Raccoon route, and after some deliberation, decided she would; Scott wasn't from Raccoon, but he'd been around when her grandfather had been around—and her grandfather had been around Raccoon, back when Umbrella was beginning to groom the hillbilly town as their ground zero.

Alexia called Antarctica, and Scott came in over the mansion's extension. "Hey, princess," said Scott amiably. "How's Raccoon City?"

"Good, Scott," she said, staring absently at an oil painting of the Arklays hanging on the wall. "How's Antarctica?"

"Same as you'd left it," said Scott, and he chuckled. "Cold, boring. Alfred's been sick, so I've been taking care of him."

"Nothing serious, I hope." Alexia honestly wasn't worried, but had asked anyway because it was the polite thing to do. Alfred was a diva, and he had this awful habit of exaggerating everything for the attention: what was a paper cut was a severed limb, and what was nothing more than a passing cold was a certain-death pneumonia.

"No," said Scott, and he laughed. "Think it's one of those two-day stomach bugs. Has a mild fever, and he's been throwing up. I'm telling you, kiddo, he was probably sneaking junk food from the staff cafeteria again, and he ate something contaminated. That food is highly suspect. I certainly wouldn't eat it."

"Precisely why I always take my meals at the mansion."

" _I_ wouldn't _let_ you eat that garbage, princess. You're a growing girl; you don't need some weird pseudo-food stunting your growth. Alfred, he just sneaks behind my back." Scott snickered, and he added, "He's paying for it now. Serves him right. Maybe he'll listen better next time."

Alexia had been enjoying their conversation so much that she'd nearly forgotten about the entire reason she'd called him. "Scott, sorry, there's a reason I'd called you," she said, and she sat down in the chair at the desk, wrapping the accordioned phone-cord around her fingers so her hand had something to do. "Do you know anything about the old Stoneville-Raccoon rail?" asked Alexia. "The one that had closed in the 60s."

"That's a weird thing to call someone up for," said Scott, and she could picture his face then, his hard ex-marine features pinched with confusion. "You have Grayson doing some kind of history assignment or something?"

She decided to go with that, and said, "Yes. A history report."

Silence. Then Scott said, "But you're the one asking."

Alexia smacked her forehead.

"Nice try, kiddo. You're real easy to catch in a lie." Scott laughed warmly, and he said, the start of a lecture in his voice, "You know I don't like lying, Alexia. You tried pulling this crap when you were younger, remember? When my candies started going missing? I'd caught you in the lie, and you'd tried blaming Alfred. Then there was that other time you'd pushed Grayson when you were about five because you both had been fighting over a Magna Doodle, and he'd cracked his head open. You'd lied again, and you'd blamed Alfred. So I got a history lesson for you: what did I tell you back then?"

Alexia couldn't quite remember, and she hesitated, "'Don't blame Alfred'?"

"Well," said Scott, "that was part of it, certainly. But I told you that lying is wrong, and honesty is the best policy, kiddo. You might not believe in God like I do, but believe me, He's watching."

"Please spare me the hallelujah rubbish, Scott. I don't care about God," she said evenly, because they'd been over this a thousand times before. "God is a morality construct. God is a concept humans came up with in order to compartmentalize good and evil. In reality, good and evil is just human nature, the product of synaptic activity in the brain. It can't be separated into clear black and white; it's gray, and it always will be gray."

He sighed. "All right," said Scott, and his tone implied he was done with that discussion. Then, "So what's this call really about, kiddo? Why do you want to know about the old rail?"

"Something happened in Arklay, and before you panic, I'm fine. The rail factors into the problem, and that's why I want to know."

"Good. Glad you're all right," said Scott. "I suppose you can't talk about what happened?"

"No," she said, "I can't."

"Right. Umbrella," said Scott, and he paused, a thoughtful silence. Then he said, "Well, I don't know much personally about the rail, considering I'm from New Jersey, and I'd only ever visited Raccoon, so I'm not very familiar with the local history. Your grandfather and I rode it once to Stoneville, back in '62. It was a civilian rail then. Stoneville was a pretty popular weekend getaway for folks. Real nice part of the Arklays up that way, especially in autumn, when the leaves get all pretty. It was one of those touristy towns, the ones full of bed and breakfasts, and little gift shops for the bored middle-class weekenders. Autumn Fair was really popular; they held it up at the fairgrounds there. Fair would run from early October, and to about the end of November. I remember me and Eddy going up there on Halloween, or it might've been a little bit before Halloween. I don't quite remember. We'd gotten loaded on Schlitz, so most of that night past a certain point is a little blurry."

Alexia chuckled. "Admitting to being drunk, Scott? Not very godly of you."

"I'm human, kiddo. Nothing godly about me."

"At least you realize that," said Alexia, and she paused, cradling the handset between her shoulder and jaw. "Do you remember anything in particular? Anything that really stands out to you." It was a shot in the dark.

"I remember this little girl," said Scott. "She was fussing about her doll, and I'll never forget it because I'd never seen a little girl look so heartbroken over a doll. She'd lost it, and I think I remember her mentioning her daddy had bought it for her. Her mother, a very nice-looking woman from what I remember—though not nearly as nice-looking as Alice, mind you—was trying to calm her down and help her find it. They got off at Stoneville, and I didn't see the doll in the little girl's hand. She had the saddest damned expression on her face; it broke my heart, kiddo. Eddy and I tried to find it, but we never did."

Alexia suddenly felt uncomfortable, thinking about Lisa like that, like a normal little girl who'd only wanted the doll her father had bought her. "I see," she said, and she frowned thoughtfully. That explained why Lisa had been hanging around the train; she'd been after the doll, not Hunkin or Grayson. And it hadn't been the doll, precisely, that she'd wanted; she'd wanted the memory of her mother, the traces of her still clinging to the doll. "Thank you, Scott," she said finally, and Alexia smiled.

"No problem, kiddo. I hope it helped."

"Immensely," said Alexia.

"She reminds me of you. In hindsight, I mean," said Scott. "You weren't born then, obviously. But thinking about it now, I can draw comparisons because you exist now, kiddo."

Alexia was still smiling. She loved Scott like a father, and he had a certain talent for making her feel like the most important person in the world, and Alexia liked that. She liked feeling like the center of a father's world, because she'd never known that sort of thing when Alexander had been alive.

Silently, Alexia admitted to herself that she did, in fact, enjoy being a daddy's girl. Then, "How does the little girl remind you of me?"

"You kidding?" said Scott, as though she should have already known how the little girl reminded him of her. He laughed. "Kiddo," he said, "you know how many times you'd cried because your favorite toy at the time had broken? Because you'd hurt yourself? Because I'd told you no? I'd need a calculator."

Alexia giggled. Scott had this habit of affectionately waffling on about her, her brother, and Grayson, and, on several occasions, he'd even waffled on about them to perfect strangers; he'd always spoken with such enormous pride, too, like they were his Medals of Honor.

"When you were three, you'd cried your eyes out because you'd lost one of your favorite Weebles. Girl genius Alexia Ashford crying over a damned Weeble." She could hear the massive grin in his voice. "Turned out Alfred had hidden it on you after you'd broken his favorite G.I Joe. And when you were six, you'd fallen off that carousel in the attic above your room. I'd told you to stop monkeying around on it because that's how people got hurt, and sure enough, you monkeyed around on it, Alexia, and you fell. You remember what happened? You cut your leg open, gushed blood everywhere."

She remembered. She still had the scar on her shin, although it had faded considerably to an off-white color. "Grayson dared me," said Alexia. "He kept telling me I wouldn't do it."

"If Grayson dared you to jump off a bridge, would you?"

"I was six."

"With the brain of an adult," said Scott. "You knew better, Alexia. But Grayson knew better, too; I whooped him after that carousel business." He paused. "You know," he said, "out of the three of you, Alfred's been the most well-behaved. I'd spent more time disciplining you and Grayson than I ever did Alfred."

"More so Grayson," she pointed out, helpfully.

"That kid's too wild for his own good," said Scott ruefully. "Hope he settles down when he's older and wises up. He won't make a good husband for you if he's always doing the first stupid thing that pops into his head."

Alexia blushed. "I'm only thirteen, and you're already talking about marriage. Stop being so bloody old-fashioned."

"It's just a gut-feeling, kiddo," said Scott. "You and Grayson got something I've never seen before, something real special. I'd bet money you both wind up getting married as soon as you're eighteen."

She was still blushing. Her cheeks and ears felt as if they'd caught fire, and she knew if she looked in a mirror, she'd see her entire face was bright red. "You're being absolutely ridiculous, Scott."

"Hey, it's nothing to be embarrassed about, kiddo. Some people spend their entire lives, and to no avail, finding their soulmates. And here you both are, thirteen and fifteen. But I swear, if you both are doing anything—"

"We're _not_ ," she whined. "We're not doing anything like _that_ , Scott."

"Good. Save it for marriage," said Scott. "Because I swear, if it goes beyond kissing, I'll whoop you both from here to kingdom come. And when you reach kingdom come, I'll whoop you back to here, and then back to kingdom come again. _Capisci_?"

"Scott, we're not having sex." The heat in her cheeks had cooled to a dull warmth. "I promise. Not for several years."

"Good. That's my girl. And remember, if you're lying, I will catch you up in it."

"I'm not lying."

"Good. I'll look forward to walking you down the aisle on that day. And looking forward to my grandkids."

"Scott," she said, blushing furiously again, "I'm hanging up."

He laughed, said, "Good night, kiddo. Sweet dreams," and hung up.

Alexia put the handset back on the cradle, and stood. She glanced at the bay window, watching the trees fluttering beyond the glass. _Stoneville_. She'd never been to Stoneville before.


	26. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - Part 9

Stoneville was a fairy-tale microcosm, a pretentiously artful arrangement of Colonial-styled cottages, and specialty boutiques and restaurants hedging narrow cobblestone streets. It was one of those towns that, during the warmer months, would be teeming with bored weekenders, but would be a ghost town during the winter. Except during Christmas, Alexia imagined, when the weekenders suddenly craved white mountain Christmases, and gimmicky Christmas shops that always smelled inexplicably like pine and cinnamon, and sold overpriced hand-painted ornaments, hand-carved nutcrackers, and ceramic Currier and Ives sets for eager middle-aged housewives to shove under their trees.

Grayson was studying a suit of armor on display in a window, and he said, "Whoah. You think it's real?"

Alexia looked. Her first thought was why would anyone have a shop that sold armor and swords when gun licenses were so easy to obtain in the state. Her second thought was no, it was an imitation, like everything else on display in the window. "That," she said, "is a modern Chinese imitation of a 16th Century set of English armor based on George Clifford's suit. You know how I know it's Chinese?" Grayson asked her how, and Alexia smiled. She pushed her finger to the window and started tracing the designs on the armor. "The Tudor rose and the French fleur-de-lis is a bloody decal, and the armor is missing Elizabeth's cipher, the double E. Not too mention the articulations are absolute rubbish." She paused, looking at the price-tag: $3,000 written in black felt-pen. "Some idiot is going to buy it for three thousand dollars," she remarked dully. "Probably an accountant. I've noticed a pattern: the more white-collar and boring someone's job is, the odder and more esoteric their interests. My theory is it's a form of personal compensation, like men who buy muscle cars because they have small penises, or women who put on too much make-up because they look like dogs."

"How about the swords?" asked Grayson, pointing at what Alexia guessed were supposed to be Zweihanders, arranged carefully on a rectangle of arterial red ultrasuede.

"Imitations," she said automatically. "See the blades? That's stainless steel, Grayson, which wasn't discovered until 1913."

"You know a lot about armors and swords," he remarked.

"Alfred. He taught me a lot of that stuff."

Grayson nodded. He wore pegged jeans, a Depeche Mode T-shirt, and a denim jacket lined with off-white fleece. It was cold out today; Autumn had come early, it seemed.

"That," said Alexia, and she pulled her pea-coat a little tighter around her, "and my family is of noble blood, Grayson. We have several family heirlooms that date back centuries, so I've gotten quite good at differentiating between imitations and originals. We even have a suit of armor that dates back to my ancestor Sir Walter Ashford, a Knights Companion in the Order of the Garter who'd fought against the Scots."

"Oh yeah," said Grayson, raising his eyebrows, his Nikes scraping at the cobblestone. "I knocked it over once when I was ten, and dad whooped my ass good for that."

"You did what?"

"I wanted to wear the helmet," said Grayson, defensively. "Ten-year-old logic, Alexia. _Normal_ ten-year-old logic."

Alexia wasn't really sure what they were looking for in Stoneville, only that, twenty years ago, Lisa had come here with her mother. She asked the locals about popular restaurants and stores in the area, and she eventually found herself standing in the worn interior of a cafe called Shirley's, which, the sign outside proclaimed, had been established in 1931, and had the best coffee in the county. Though Alexia didn't know how someone could have the best coffee in the county; all coffee tasted the same, but in varying degrees of tolerableness.

Shirley's was a place of scuffed tiled floor and pastel-colored walls, and white-painted hepplewhite tables and chairs. A long plastic counter spanned the right side of the building. The air smelled of roasting coffee beans and cookies.

"Excuse me," said Alexia to the middle-aged woman behind the counter, who'd been flipping through the pages of a _Good Housekeeping_ magazine. The middle-aged woman looked at her, closed the magazine, and she smiled. "Hi. Yes," said Alexia. "I'm new to Stoneville, and I'm looking for information."

"What can I help you with, young lady?" the woman asked, and the brass name-tag pinned to her shirt gave her name as Melissa. Melissa had a thick Midwestern accent, and she stared at Alexia through the large lenses of prescription glasses.

"I'm trying to find information on someone," she said, smiling pleasantly. Alexia had found that people were a lot less suspicious when she smiled, and she attributed that to her age, and her innocent, pretty looks. "Lisa Trevor? She and her mother Jessica had attended the Autumn Fair in 1962, and then they'd disappeared."

The woman frowned deeply, and she said, "My Ma might know something about that. She used to help organize the Fair, see, but she's getting up in years." Melissa moved toward the phone. She was a heavier woman, but moved with surprising energy. "I'll call her right up."

"Thank you."

Melissa fingered the dial-wheel and said, "Oh, honey, it's no trouble. You came all this way, so it must be important. That accent ain't a local one, for sure. Australian?"

"English," said Alexia flatly.

"Oh, sorry," said Melissa, and then she started to talk, very loudly, to someone on the phone.

Grayson and her sat at one of the tables by the window. "Australian," said Grayson, and he chuckled. "She said you were Australian."

"I've heard Australian," and Alexia started to count off on her fingers, "South African—that one had surprised me—Scottish, Irish, Welsh." She shook her head, and said, "You Yanks are terrible at picking out accents."

"You limeys ain't much better," joked Grayson, grinning. In the bright morning light coming through the window, he looked younger, more boyish and alive. "Don't know New Jersey from New York, Mississippi from Texas, Kentucky from California."

"As if most Americans even know the difference," said Alexia, and she rolled her eyes.

"Hey," he said, and he leaned across the table and poked her nose. " _Boop_."

Alexia smacked his hand away, and Grayson laughed.

Melissa bustled over to them and said, "Apparently, Ma spoke to Jessica Trevor. Ma was always like that, always talking to folks. Funny how she remembers that, all those years ago, but she does, and it's making me think that doctor up in Raccoon City don't know what he's talking about, all that goshdang nonsense about Alzheimer's and what-have-you." Up close, Melissa's face was broad and rosy, and she had the beginnings of a double-chin. The corners of her froggish mouth were wet, and her eyes were green and beady. "Said Lisa was the most darling little girl, that her daddy had been working on some kind of renovation project out by Raccoon. Her daddy was an architect, see, and that's why he was in the area." She shrugged her heavy round shoulders. "Anyway," she said, and Alexia was beginning to lose her patience with Melissa's waffling, "Ma says they had a nice chat, and last she'd seen 'em, they were talking about heading up to the Stoneville Dam. Good fishing up that way. You ought to go out there one of these days and try for some trout or bass."

 _Lisa was headed to the Stoneville Dam next_. "Thank you, er, Melissa," she said, and Alexia found herself suddenly squished against Melissa's large, shapeless breasts, and she smelled the Charlie perfume on her clothes. "Please," said Alexia, and she gently pushed away from the woman, "we English, we don't like hugging. It's a cultural thing, I'm sorry." Mostly, Alexia had just wanted Melissa to stop hugging her.

"Oh, shucks, I'm so sorry, honey. Sometimes I get so caught up," said Melissa apologetically. "Here," and she went away and came back with two Styrofoam cups of coffee, "this here's for both of you. On the house."

They left Shirley's, and Grayson said to her, his breath steaming in the dry cold air, "It is _not_ a cultural thing." He sipped his coffee, commented that it wasn't too bad, and added, "I hug you all the goddamn time, Alexia. Sometimes you even go out of your way for a cuddle. I'll be napping, and when I wake up, you're clinging to me."

She blushed, and sipped her coffee. It wasn't bad at all; though Alexia wouldn't go as far to say it was the best in the county. "I just wanted her to stop hugging me," she said, as they walked down the cobblestone street. "I like it when _you_ hug me, Grayson. Sometimes. When I'm not in the middle of something."

They followed the signs to the fairgrounds. The fairgrounds was located in Stoneville Park. It was a large grassy expanse right by the Aimes River, and a few kids were playing with a Frisbee, and not too far from them, a group of patched denim-clad punks with feathery mohawks sat on a picnic table, smoking cigarettes and blasting Bad Religion on a chrome-plated boombox.

"Hey," said Grayson, to the punks at the picnic table. "You know where the Stoneville Dam is?"

The group laughed at him. One thin boy with too much eyeliner around his eyes, and a bent Marlboro in his mouth, said, "Sure, just follow the river north." Then he looked at her, and asked, "What, man, you taking that yuppie bitch up there for a fuck?"

"That's my girlfriend, man," said Grayson, his tone stone-cold.

"I can speak for myself," said Alexia, and she looked at the boy with the Marlboro and too much eyeliner. "I'm assuming your unnecessary hostility stems from a broken home, a lack of accessibility to education because your father is undoubtedly a deadbeat, and your mother probably drinks too much, and because your particular silly subculture calls for a certain pretentious toughness in its criteria. It's fine, I understand. You're posturing for your goons," and she gestured at his friends. "But my advice is to work on your attitude. Otherwise you'll be smoking Marlboros on picnic tables for the rest of your life when you're not working double-shifts at the local convenience store."

The boy said nothing, and cranked his music louder. Alexia went with Grayson, in the direction of the dam. "That was brutal," said Grayson, grinning. "You cut right into him, Alexia. Filleted his sorry ass."

"Well," she said. "I couldn't precisely kill him."


	27. File 12 - A Tragic Monster - End

It started to rain. Alexia stopped at a payphone along the trail, its casing stained in dark red patches of rust, and fed a few quarters into the slot. When the operator picked up on the third ring and thanked her for calling the Umbrella Corporation, Alexia gave her employee ID and asked to be transferred to the Arklay extension. She waited, listening to the tinny Muzak on the other end. Birkin picked up.

"Ashford," he said irritably, and she could tell he hadn't slept yet. "Unless you got—"

"Lisa's at the Stoneville Dam, Birkin," said Alexia automatically, and she watched Grayson, who was skipping rocks over the Aimes, his clothes and hair ruffling in the wet September wind. "I need you to pass the message along to Hunkin. He should be out of the infirmary by now."

"Don't tell me you're going after her, Ashford. The fuck are you gonna do?"

"I'm not sure," she said honestly.

"You're crazy."

"Just tell Hunkin for me," said Alexia, and she looked down at the hard black patties of gum stuck to the lip of the cubby, where the phone-book would have been had someone not torn it off its chain, and she grimaced. She took a single step back.

"Fine," said Birkin resignedly.

"Thank you," she said, and she hung up.

The Stoneville Dam was practically in the middle of nowhere, a curved wall of stained concrete that sat about forty feet above the water. Dense gray-green trees, shale beaches, and mossy rocks banked the Aimes, and in the distance, Alexia could see the higher peaks of the Arklays rising like titans in the fog.

They found a plastic cooler filled with beer on the Dam, several empty bottles scattered around it, and an overturned tacklebox, the colorful lures spilled across the concrete. Alexia craned her neck over the side of the Dam. A man's mangled body sprawled at the bottom of the spillway. He wore a torn flannel shirt, and oil-stained jeans, and he clutched a fishing pole in his right hand. The water around his head had turned a deep scarlet.

"Either that crazy mutant-looking bitch pushed him off," said Grayson, behind her, "or he jumped and didn't land right. Poor dude."

"He's been there a while," said Alexia. "See," and she pointed. "The body's started to bloat."

"You think Lisa moved on?"

Alexia shook her head, and she looked around. "I don't think so," she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. Her hands were beginning to sweat. "If it was anything like the train, she's looking for something here."

They walked along the bank of the Aimes. The trails up here were mostly overgrown; Alexia supposed the county had closed them down. A hand-painted sign, practically falling off its wooden post, warned them of sinkholes. They walked for a long time, until Alexia didn't feel comfortable walking any further. They turned back to the Stoneville Dam, and it was nearly dark by the time they'd arrived.

"Mama."

Alexia ducked behind some large rocks, pulling Grayson down with her. He looked at her, in silent, pale fear. She looked at him and pushed a finger against her lips, and then she carefully shuffled on her toes, peeking around the rocks.

Lisa crouched on the Dam like some grotesque gargoyle, an ugly, humped shadow in the sodium-glow of the lone caged lightbulb mounted to the tiny powerhouse. She was naked, holding the dead fisherman's head in her hands and staring intently at it. She sniffed the head once, and then a grayish tongue slithered out from behind Lisa's collection of faces, and she licked the dead man's cheek. "Mama not," said Lisa miserably, and she started, with all the casualness of a child peeling glue from their hand, tearing off the man's face.

Alexia's stomach lurched unpleasantly, and she pressed her forehead against the cool, wet rock, willing herself not to vomit.

"She's… she's wearing the guy's face now," said Grayson quietly.

Alexia peeked around the rock, her body shaking from the cold damp, from the fear. Lisa wore the man's dripping face now, among her other faces, and she was humming something that might've been _Hush, Little Baby._ Lisa's rendition was disturbingly off-kilter, seemed to wobble and distort like a broken music box. The tune made Alexia's skin crawl, and she wanted to run, run far away, but knew if she moved, she'd die.

She squinted at the time on her Cartier. Ten o'clock. When she looked back up, Lisa wasn't on the Dam. Alexia glanced at Grayson, who'd gone perfectly still, his eyes searching wildly for something. Alexia heard twigs snapping on her right, the rustle of something large moving through the underbrush and the trees. And she knew then, with nauseating certainty, it was Lisa. Slowly, Alexia turned around. Lisa squatted about ten feet away, watching them like a curious child. She heard the fizz of piss on the ground, and Alexia pressed up against the rock, the granite scratching at her pea coat.

Grayson edged in front of her, his hand in his pocket. Alexia knew he was fingering the switchblade he always carried. "Don't," she told him quietly. "Not unless she does something."

"Dr. Alexia, can't mama. Mama, mama, mama." The veil Lisa wore, her collection of dead faces, they all looked scared or sad, their expressions twisting together into a singular scrawl of raw metafear. "Mama not here either, Dr. Alexia. Mama. She bring here long time ago and say this our secret spot, but mama not in secret spot and I try to take face from ugly man because mama hides behind his face, but no mama, Dr. Alexia. _Mama_." Lisa started to stroke her own arm, and she whispered to herself, "Hush, hush."

"You need to go back home, Lisa," said Alexia evenly, and she could barely hear herself over the throb of her heartbeat in her ears.

Lisa shrieked. "No," she cried, "I not want back. Need mama."

"Lisa, we'll find your mother," she lied, careful not to make any sudden moves. "But you have to go back."

Then there was a pop, like a gun, and Lisa shrieked again. She flailed uselessly in the weighted titanium-alloy rope, and Hunkin came out from the bushes and said, "Good you kept the bitch talking, Dr. Ashford." He kicked Lisa in the side, and she howled. Hunkin laughed coldly. "Fucking moron. Your mommy's gone, and she's not coming back," he taunted, holstering his net-gun, which looked a bit like a flare gun cast in black plastic. He took the rifle off his back and pointed it at Lisa. "Quit fucking twitching. Or I'm going to make you hurt."

"I'm relieved," said Alexia, and she released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, "that Birkin passed my message along."

Lisa screamed. Hunkin kicked her again, and he took the radio off his belt. "This is Hunkin," he said. "I got Lisa. Requesting a pick up at the Stoneville Dam."

They rode back to the Spencer estate in a U.S.S convoy. Alexia wondered what Melissa might think should she look out her window, and see a line of armored Umbrella vehicles cruising down Stoneville's touristy streets.

"Thank you for showing up when you did," she said to Hunkin.

"I'd been there a while. I was just waiting for an opportunity to shoot, and you gave me that." He looked at her, his mouth a hard line. Then, "Birkin synthesized a cure for Lisa's problem. And the guys down in R & D, they're beginning preliminary development of a tranq specifically _for_ Lisa's particular condition." Hunkin spoke in purposeful ambiguity; they couldn't talk specifics in front of Grayson, thanks to company NDA. "But they're saying they won't have a final product for another ten years."

"So Lisa's not a patient at that hospital?" asked Grayson, looking at Hunkin, then looking at her. "She's with Umbrella?"

"Yes," said Alexia, and she looked at him, his head lit from behind by the sodium glow of the streetlights.

"And Birkin's gonna cure her?"

"Yes," said Alexia.

Grayson nodded. "Right," he said, and he looked out the window. For someone who could be painfully unaware at times, Grayson knew, Alexia had observed, precisely where to draw certain lines. "Umbrella biz."


	28. File 13 - Reality Disorder - Part 1

Alfred stared at the psychiatrist's beaky face across the desk, already hating him. He hated him because he was a psychiatrist, hated his ugly tweed suit that, Alfred was sure, had been bought off some department store rack. The jacket didn't fit him right; it was too baggy in the sleeves, and the jacket itself sat oddly on the man's narrow shoulders.

"Mr. Ashford," drawled the old bastard in his offensive Brooklyn English, leafing through a file stapled to the inside of a manila folder. He wore gold wire-frame glasses, and Alfred was sure he'd bought them at a drug-store as an afterthought, probably when he'd gone to buy his cat a tin of food. He seemed like a cat person, at least. "You had an episode recently."

"It was nothing," said Alfred, shifting in the overlarge Chesterfield. He looked down, studying the toes of his oxfords. They'd need another good shine. No matter what, New York always seemed to leave a particularly nasty class of filth on his shoes.

"Not what the report says, Mr. Ashford." The psychiatrist's hair was sparse, parted to one side, a thin spot on the back of his scalp. Male pattern baldness. Alfred frowned. Poor bastard. "You're upset about your twin sister's death. I understand that. But you can't get better if you continue to dwell on it, Mr. Ashford."

Alfred said nothing. He was sixteen now, but every day still felt like the day after Alexia's death. A coldness followed him everywhere, and the world always felt overcast, permanently gray. He'd loved his sister dearly, and her death, it had taken the sun from his world. "I don't need your bloody help," he said, impatiently.

"Then why are you here, Mr. Ashford?"

Alfred stared at the Picasso reprint hanging on the wall behind the psychiatrist, one of the pieces from his blue period. "My butler made me," he said, feeling a pang of resentment. Scott had pushed him into meeting this overpaid know-nothing. All he'd done was bloodied a researcher; it hardly called for a shrink.

Silence. Then the shrink asked, "Alfred, do you always let others make decisions for you?"

"No," he lied.

"I'm sensing a bit of dishonesty," said the shrink.

"No. You're not."

"Mr. Ashford, you'd nearly beaten a researcher to death."

"They asked about Alexia. I didn't like their tone."

"So you think beating everyone who asks about her is the answer to your problem?"

"It's a bloody start," said Alfred, and he paused, started chuckling. "'Bloody start'. Get it?"

The shrink stared gravely at him.

The door suddenly banged open, startling him. Alfred quickly hid the unopened bottle of pills in his drawer, then straightened his jacket and hair. He was expecting one of his superiors from Umbrella for a routine inspection of the prison compound, and he wanted to look presentable. But it wasn't his superior. Grayson walked in, carrying Alfred's usual four o'clock tea.

"You feeling okay, Alfred?" he asked.

Grayson belonged to his sister, but Alfred had always appreciated Grayson's looks. He was tall, built, and tanned—something distinctly Mediterranean about those qualities, Alfred decided. But his most brilliant feature was his eyes, which were a pale diamond color. "You look better," he said, and he put the tray on the desk. Alfred could smell the Taylor of Old Bond Street on him.

"I feel fine," he said, cradling his cup of tea and rising from his seat. Alfred turned to the window, staring at the blue ocean horizon, and the large white clouds bubbling up from it. "Have you heard anything regarding our visitors, Grayson?"

Grayson stood beside him now, shoulders squared, hands clasped at the small of his back. He wore a black waistcoat and shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and black dress trousers. His dark hair was neatly pomaded. The sunlight coming through the window glinted along the silver Cartier he wore around his wrist. "The suits? I think they're going to be busy," he said, and he looked at him, shaking his head. "Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what?" asked Alfred, raising an eyebrow. He primly sipped at his tea, then set the antique cup on its saucer with a clink. For an American, Alfred decided, Grayson certainly fixed a brilliant cup of tea.

"Raccoon City is gone," said Grayson, and he was looking out the window now, something distant and removed in his expression. "Nothing left of it," he added, frowning. "Government dropped a couple of missiles on the city." He looked at Alfred, and said, "There was an outbreak." He took something from his back pocket and handed it to him. "Look."

Alfred hadn't heard about this. He set the cup of tea on the edge of the desk, then took the rolled up paper from Grayson. He unrolled it. It was a newspaper from Lima; Alfred had the papers delivered to Rockfort, so he could read about the goings-on in the world. He didn't speak a lick of Spanish, so he'd have Grayson, who was fluent in Spanish, read him the articles. The picture showed an enormous mushroom cloud. "I can't bloody read this, and you know it," he said. "But I can take an educated guess."

"'Raccoon City is Erased' is the title of the article," said Grayson. "Not a very creative title, but nobody ever accused a journalist of being creative. That said, the article talks about the 'dead walking'." Grayson stared at him, frowning. "I know Umbrella was experimenting with the undead; you'd told me as much. But that, Alfred? That's just crazy. Infecting, and then blowing up, an entire city? Crazy."

Alfred rolled up the paper and handed it back to Grayson. "I had no idea," he said, and meant it. "I'm administrative, Grayson. If Umbrella was planning something, they wouldn't tell me. My concern is our paramilitary operation." Alfred smiled, although he tried his best not to. "So I take it Jill Valentine is dead?"

"Don't sound so chipper," said Grayson gloomily. "But yeah, probably."

Alfred clapped him on the shoulder and said, "My condolences."

"You don't mean that at all."

"You're absolutely right," said Alfred, laughing. "Not in the bloody least."

Grayson shook his head. Alfred opened his mouth to say something else, something rather unpleasant about Jill Valentine, but was quickly cut off by his sister, who'd appeared behind them, slipping her arm across Grayson's shoulders. "Well," she said cheekily, tipping her head on one side. "That is wonderful news. Not that he ever loved her anyway."

And how could Grayson actually love Jill Valentine, Alfred thought, when he had Alexia. She was tall, willowy, and blonde, and Alfred had told Alexia several times that she should consider, perhaps if she grew bored of Umbrella, pursuing a career in movies. After all, the yanks loved hiring British actors to play yanks, and Alexia was certainly more attractive than most of the women in Hollywood. "That is true indeed," said Alfred, and he smiled at his sister.

"Alexia," said Grayson, and he sighed, shaking his head. "How about we don't talk about Jill."

Alexia chuckled and said, "Oh, love. We all know you love me. But allow me, please, to savor the 'other woman's' death, hm?" Her perfume, something sweet and floral, wafted through the office. She smiled, absently smoothing a crease in her dark violet dress. "I've been waiting long enough."

"Alexia," said Grayson, and he sighed again.

"Harman, let my sister have her fun," chided Alfred, picking up his lukewarm tea and finishing it off. "After all," he added, setting down the cup and saucer on the desk, "you do belong to her."

"I never said—"

"Good. Then you'll let my dear sister have her fun."

"Alfred, you should take your pills," said Grayson, and he looked pleadingly at him.

"He already took them," said Alexia, gliding away from the window and sitting down at the coffee table in front of his desk, on the leather-upholstered sofa. She started leafing through a stack of papers Alfred had been meaning to take down to Martin, mostly financial reports, and a few requisitions for the prison. "You worry too much, Grayson dear." She looked at him with doe-like blue eyes, and chided, "You're going to get permanent wrinkles around your mouth, should you keep frowning like that."

"I'll be okay," said Grayson, and he collected Alfred's cup and saucer, and put it back on the tray.

"I don't want you ruining your gorgeous, chiseled face with wrinkles, Grayson," said Alexia, beaming. "Think of how horrible our wedding photographs will look. Isn't that right, Alfred? They'd look dreadful."

"I agree, sister," said Alfred, grinning. He'd always loved giving Grayson a hard time; it was a pastime of theirs, a sort of tradition, like fraternity hazings. "Perhaps you should spend a little less time in the sun, too. You're getting a bit too dark."

"Alfred," said Grayson, an edge in his voice.

"It's the Italian in him," said Alexia flippantly, draping herself across the sofa like a beautiful lounging cat. "Or Greek. Or both. Which one was it, Grayson?"

"Italian," said Grayson, exasperatedly. "Italians who'd immigrated to England, then immigrated to America. I've told you both this before. But maybe there was some Greek in there too? Who knows."

"As long as it isn't—"

"Alfred," said Grayson. "Please. Stop."

"You know I simply enjoy giving you a hard time," said Alfred.

"As if," said Alexia, flipping through one of Alfred's gun catalogs, "I'd ever entertain the idea of marrying him if he—"

"Can you both cut it with the racist shit?" said Grayson.

Alfred shrugged, and so did Alexia.

"Thank you," said Grayson. "I know it's hard for you both, that whole decency thing, but I appreciate the effort."

Alexia put the catalog down, turned around on her knees, her hands on the backrest. "Oh, I'm sorry, Grayson," she cooed, tilting her head. Alfred watched Alexia flick her hair to one side, baring a shoulder, and the long white sweep of her neck. She coyly smiled, and Alfred shook his head. Sometimes his sister could be a little too indecent. "Why don't you come over here so I can properly apologize?" she said sultrily, teasing a finger along the deep neckline of her dress, as though she intended to pull it down. Alfred clenched his teeth, his jaw tensing. "With a kiss, perhaps," she added. "Perhaps more, if you're a good boy."

"Maybe later, Alexia," said Grayson, and he started toward the door, the tea and kettle rattling on the tray in rhythm with his long-legged gait. "I have to get dinner ready." He stopped in front of the Swiss clock that concealed the mansion's entrance, and stared at them, perfectly expressionless. "What do you both want?"

"You're just going to ignore my sister, Harman?" said Alfred, and he felt offended on Alexia's behalf. "She wanted a kiss."

"I'm a little sick," said Grayson. "Don't want Alexia to catch anything."

Alfred nodded, and then said, "See, sister? He's only looking out for your health."

Alexia pouted. "Fine," she said, and she sighed, turning back around. "Make Devonshire crab soup," she said. "Or that shrimp-and-coconut risotto you'd made the other day, the one with mango. That was rather delicious."

"Sure. That sound okay to you, Alfred?"

"Whatever my dear sister wants," said Alfred.

Grayson bowed his head, then turned and left the room. He wasn't the most formal butler, certainly nothing like Scott, but Alfred didn't mind his lack of professionalism. Grayson was his best friend, and they'd known each other since they were babies. He turned to speak with Alexia, but Alexia had gone.

She'd probably gotten bored, Alfred decided, and had gone to find something to occupy herself with. He grabbed his rifle from against the wall and slung it over his back. Since his superiors were likely too busy cleaning up Raccoon City, Alfred supposed he'd find something to do while Grayson made dinner. He left his office, passed his new secretary without a word, and went out onto The Palace's balcony. It overlooked the grounds, and he saw a few of the Spanish gardeners tending the grass, and the flower-beds.

Alfred took the rifle off his back and peered through the scope, the laser trembling between one of the gardener's eyes. "Perhaps I'll tour the facility later," he said to himself, and he pulled the trigger.


	29. File 13 - Reality Disorder - Part 2

A room, somewhere dark and cold, illuminated by aquarium light.

Then they were standing in a study, and it was bright summer afternoon, and Alexia watched him from her place by the diamond-paned window. The sunlight burned her hair into a platinum aura, and her eyes seemed somehow bluer. She wore the dark violet dress, but there was something different about her, Alfred decided. Something different about the room they stood in.

"You're getting worse, Alfred," she said to him, and she frowned, fiddling with her fingers. She inhaled gently, then exhaled. "You're sick," she said, and her too-blue eyes bore into him—right into his skull, right into his brain, like knives.

"I'm perfectly healthy," he said, from his place at the desk. Alfred bridged his fingers and watched his sister. Her stare was beginning to hurt him, make his head ache. "You're fretting over nothing."

 _Impostor_.

The room flickered, and they were in that dark, cold place illuminated by aquarium light again. Then the lights flickered again, and they were back in the study. Grayson stood beside her now, and the world beyond the window was no longer sunny, but rainy and dark.

"She's right," said Grayson, frowning. "Alfred, you've been acting funny ever since the wedding."

"I'm just excited you both are finally beginning your lives together," said Alfred, smiling hollowly. Though, deep down, he felt that same pang of resentment he'd felt in the psychiatrist's office at sixteen. Grayson had taken his sister away. Alfred was no longer her only concern, and he hated that.

"Alfred, the wedding was a year ago, and you've been getting worse," said Alexia, and Alfred was horrified to see his sister was pregnant now. When had that happened? He couldn't remember.

 _That isn't Alexia._

"Did you say something?"

They both stared at him, and they looked concerned.

 _Impostor. The real Alexia would never replace you._

"You're right," said Alfred.

"Alfred," said Grayson, and he edged in front of Alexia. "You okay?"

 _You're fine. They're the ones who aren't fine,_ said the voice. _Look at them_. _Playing with your emotions, no concern at all for you_.

"I'm fine," he said through his teeth, shaking.

 _The real Alexia would never replace you_.

"Impostor," said Alfred, and he rose from the desk, a gun in his hand. He pointed it at Alexia, moving closer. She shrunk against the window and pleaded with him, although Alfred couldn't hear her. He didn't want to hear her anyway. She wasn't his real sister.

"Alfred, put the gun down," said Grayson. "Come on, man. We're fucking family."

Alfred pointed the gun at Grayson and pulled the trigger. He dropped, a bloody hole between his eyes. Alexia screamed. Alfred turned the gun on her now, said, "Impostor," and fired. Alexia dropped.

Alfred opened his eyes. He'd fallen asleep at his desk, it seemed. Rain pattered against the window, and he heard thunder. His door opened, and his secretary came inside, holding a folder in his hands. He was a flighty-looking man from Chicago, had a penchant for pale suits. Alfred, honestly, had never really liked him.

"Sir, I have the quarterly reports you'd requested."

Alfred straightened in his chair, observing the man with cool dislike. He felt anger, like an annoying itch, and wasn't quite sure why. His secretary cleared his throat, approached the desk, and set the stack of papers on the square of baize. Alfred took the papers and glanced them over. "Thank you," said Alfred evenly, and he set the papers aside, staring at the man.

"Is something wrong, sir?"

Alfred took the revolver from his drawer and shot him, right between the eyes. The anger started to recede. "No," he said, watching the body drop. "I feel fine now." He took the handset off its cradle and dialed the mansion's extension. Grayson picked up, after the second ring. "Grayson? I need you to clean up in my office."

Grayson had come immediately and had disposed of the body. Then he'd returned to the office an hour or so later, and started cleaning up the bloodstains. "You know," he said conversationally, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn spot on the floorboards. "If you keep killing or imprisoning your secretaries, Alfred, eventually nobody's going to put in for the job."

"That's fine. I'll just add it to your work duties," said Alfred candidly.

Grayson sighed, wringing his rag over the bucket of cleaning solution. "I'd make a pretty terrible secretary," he said, and he started wiping the coffee-table, where a few errant drops of blood had landed. "I hate people. You know that."

"I do know that. Also, the body?"

"Acid bath," said Grayson dully. "Then incinerated. Though I don't get why. Nobody goes to the mansion, Alfred, or this island. And I doubt Umbrella cares if you kill a few people."

"Routine," said Alfred dismissively, and he shrugged. "Better safe than sorry, and all that."

"Right," said Grayson, finishing with his work. He tossed the rag into the bucket, then picked the bucket up. "Why'd you kill this guy anyway?" he asked.

"I had a bad dream."

Grayson nodded. "Right," he said, and he started toward the Swiss clock. Alfred punched in the passcode, and the clock thumped, slid to the side on its magnetic track. "Thanks," he added, and he was just about to cross the threshold when he'd suddenly stopped. "What kind of bad dream?" he asked, looking at him.

"Alfred was dreaming about us," said Alexia, and she'd surprised Alfred. She had a terrible habit of popping up. "But he's worrying about absolutely nothing," she added, smiling. "I love you, Grayson, yes, but you know my brother is my foremost concern."

Grayson sighed, and he bobbed his head. "Yeah," he said, without looking at Alexia. "Yeah, I know."

"Don't sound so glum, Grayson," said Alexia, still smiling. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with second place."

"Yeah," said Grayson, and he started to walk away. He looked miserable, although Alfred couldn't even begin to understand why. Alexia was standing right there, and she still loved him, even if her love for him wasn't as strong as her love for Alfred. "Yeah," he repeated. "Nothing wrong at all with second place."

"Oh, Grayson. Stop moping," chided Alexia, lightly smacking the back of his shoulder. She giggled. "You're too big and intimidating for the angst-filled loner trope. It looks positively silly on you, that look."

"I'm going back up to the mansion," said Grayson, and he went through the door, the Swiss clock thumping shut behind him.

Alexia scoffed, hands on her hips. "He's so rude sometimes, brother."

Alfred shrugged. "He comes from a blue-collar upbringing. What do you expect?" He paused, staring at his sister. Then, "You'd never allow Harman to replace me. Would you, sister?"

Alexia giggled. "Of course not, silly," she said, and she glided over to his desk, kissing him on the cheek. She wound her arms around his neck in a loose hug. "You're my twin brother, Alfred," she said, and gently squeezed. She was wearing a different perfume today, gardenia with notes of vanilla. "We share an entirely different bond, a closer one."

He patted her hand and smiled, feeling much better now. "Thank you, Alexia."

She'd gone now, and Alfred was alone again in the office. Sometimes it bothered him how easily his sister became bored, and how quietly she could slip out of a room, so quietly he rarely ever had a chance to say good-bye to her. But wasn't Alexia dead? Alfred shook his head. No, he thought, that was impossible. She'd just been inside the room; he could still smell her perfume wafting through the air.

Alfred remembered his conversation—his several conversations—with psychiatrists. He remembered describing this cold gray feeling. Remembered a funeral on a cold gray day. No, Alfred told himself, he must have been confusing one memory for another. Perhaps it had been his great aunt's funeral he was thinking about?

Don't you think, the psychiatrist had asked him, that your feelings for your sister are a little inappropriate, Alfred? It's as if you want to hold her hostage.

No, he'd told the psychiatrist, he didn't want to hold Alexia hostage. He wanted to protect her from the unwashed masses.

"I want to keep her safe," he said aloud, staring at the inert marble fireplace in the corner of the room.


	30. File 13 - Reality Disorder - Part 3

He dreamed about that dark, cold room again. Something, Alfred was sure, was sleeping in there.

The psychiatrist sat in the room, the Picasso reprint hanging above him like some kind of omen. Alfred stared at him. He wasn't sure what visit this was, or how old he was now, but it felt like he'd been sitting in that room for several eternities, that the psychiatrist had become an extension of it, a fixture. A clock ticked somewhere, in slow motion, until the ticks sounded less like ticks, and more like the thumps of someone's heartbeat; and he couldn't be sure if it was his heartbeat, or the psychiatrist's, or someone far away, beyond the room.

The room glitched. He saw the aquarium light strobe in his vision, something floating in the water. Then the psychiatrist's room again, the steady heartbeat of the clock.

"How did this all start, Alfred?" asked the psychiatrist in his Valium-calm voice. He stared at Alfred through the lenses of his cheap-looking wire-frame glasses. "This fixation on your sister."

"I'm protecting her," said Alfred, or he was sure he'd said that anyway. At some points, he felt as if he was watching a movie, watching events he wasn't part of unfolding there on the screen in deliberate sequence. "It's not fixation."

"You're obsessed, Alfred," said the psychiatrist, his voice distorted, warbling in the space of his office. "You're not protecting her. You're smothering her. Even in death, you're still smothering her, smothering yourself with these odd fantasies. Alexia is dead, Alfred."

"I know. Or," and he hesitated, his words echoing in the air like the notes of a singing glass. "I think I know."

"Her death triggered your problem," said the psychiatrist. "Isn't that right?"

"Yes."

"But why did you kill those people? They weren't to blame for Alexia's death."

The aquarium light flooded his vision, then receded like a tide into some vast invisible expanse. "They had no right talking about her," said Alfred, and dully, he was aware that he was balling his fist.

"You don't like reminders," said the psychiatrist.

"Yes."

"Even so," said the psychiatrist, shifting in his chair, "if anyone is to blame, it's Alexia."

Alfred slammed the desk with his fists. The dippy bird perched on the edge bobbed erratically. "Don't," he snapped. "Don't you dare."

"If Alexia had been more careful," said the psychiatrist, watching him, "she would still be here."

A door suddenly banged open, and Alfred realized he was sitting in the parlor in his family's mansion, in his favorite wing-back armchair. Grayson marched inside, pulling two bruised, bloodied men in his hands.

"Found these prisoners snooping around the garden," said Grayson. The prisoners twisted in his hands, groaning pathetically. "Have no idea how they got up here. I'm thinking the old tunnels."

Alfred stared at the two emaciated creatures, their skins turned to old dark leather by the South Pacific sun. Their hair was greasy and unkempt, their uniforms little more than gray tatters. One of them looked at him like a beaten dog.

"I'll have to block those tunnels off," remarked Alfred, and he gestured for Grayson to follow him. They went behind the staircase in the foyer, and down into the basement.

The basement was a cool concrete space cluttered with boxes, and several pieces of furniture. Though there weren't any cobwebs or dirt down here; Alfred made sure Grayson cleaned the basement frequently. The prisoners started whining. Alfred dragged over two neglected rococo chairs.

"Well," he said, "we should find out why our guests are here. Grayson."

"Probably trying to escape," said Grayson, and he took a long coil of rope from behind some boxes and started to bind the prisoners to the chairs. "Not really rocket science," he added, giving the knots a couple of good tugs.

"If the prisoners are planning something, and these two are the scouts?" Alfred chuckled and wandered over to an old boombox. He liked music when he worked. Shostakovich's _Waltz No. 2_ started to fill the basement. "So," he said, smiling emptily. "What brings you to my humble abode," and he stopped, squinting at the prisoner tags. "Prisoners CAL-8879, and RKY-8865." He held a hand out to Grayson. "Grayson."

Grayson placed the hedge-clippers in his hand. Alfred shook his head. "No, no."

Grayson sighed, put the hedge-clippers down, and handed him a hammer.

"Thank you," said Alfred approvingly, beaming. He looked at the prisoners. "For brevity's sake, I'm going to call you Cal and Ricky."

"Look, we don't want any trouble, Warden," said Cal. Alfred couldn't tell what race he was, under all the dirt, bruises, and blood.

"Not the best place to come," said Alfred, and he smashed Cal's left knee with the hammer, "if you're not looking for trouble, _Cal_."

Cal screamed.

"Stop screaming," said Alfred, circling the chair. He patted Cal on the shoulder. "Please, the acoustics are entirely too good down here for screaming. Hurts my ears, you see."

Cal started sobbing. Alfred rolled his eyes. People were entirely too delicate these days.

Once Cal had composed himself, Alfred asked him why he was here. And again, Cal didn't answer. "You must," said Alfred, and he smashed his other knee with the hammer, "really enjoy pain, Cal."

"We were pressured into this by the other inmates," said Cal, tears streaking the grime on his face. "They want you dead, Warden. We were asked to look—"

"Shut the fuck up," said Ricky.

Alfred swung the hammer into Ricky's head with a loud, wet crack, and Ricky slouched forward, bleeding copiously onto the concrete. "You were saying," said Alfred, smiling at Cal. "Tell me, and I might let you go recover in the infirmary."

"The inmates, they wanna kill you, Warden. And they, they—"

Alfred leaned very close to the prisoner, brandishing the hammer. "Get to the point," he snapped, through his teeth.

"They wanted us to bring Alexia back down into the compound," said Cal, and he started to sob about his knees again. "Figured 'spoils of war', and all that. Most of 'em ain't seen a woman in years. But I wasn't one of 'em, Warden. Swear to fucking God. I got forced into this."

Alexia was leaning against one of the concrete pillars, smiling in amusement. "A prison gangbang has never been on my bucket list, dear brother."

Grayson rubbed the space between his eyes and mumbled, "Oh great."

"What did you just say?" said Alfred coldly.

"I told you, Warden. Inmates wanted us to check out the mansion, get Alexia. Maybe kill you," said Cal miserably, his eyes wet with tears. "Some guard told us about the tunnels. I never got a name."

"Now, if we could clone Grayson," said Alexia impishly. "Well, I might change my mind."

"Alexia, stop."

"You really need more kink in your life, Grayson," said Alexia, and she rolled her eyes. "You're a cold fish, I swear."

"I got plenty of kink," said Grayson.

"Oh," said Alexia, giggling. She flicked her hair. "Does it involve me and leather?"

"Would you both bloody shut up and let me concentrate?" shouted Alfred, and he pointed the hammer at Cal. "I'm trying to interrogate this plonker."

They both put their hands up, palms toward him: _sorry_.

"Warden, please," begged Cal, "I didn't want any involvement with this."

"You know what," said Alfred, and he smiled, teasing his fingers along the bloodied metal of the hammerhead. "I believe you. Grayson."

There was the kick and sputter of a chainsaw, and the smell of gas in the room. Cal started screaming, rocking in his chair. Alfred stepped aside. Heard the wet squelch of meat as Grayson lopped off Cal's arm, a spray of blood catching him in the chin. Alfred sniffed imperiously, wiping the blood away with his handkerchief.

"Let him serve as a reminder that nobody plots against me," said Alfred, and he gestured toward the door. "Grayson," he said, tossing the handkerchief aside, "please escort Cal back to the infirmary."

"He'll be dead by then."

"Oh well, who cares," said Alfred, shrugging. "We'll leave his body out while the prisoners are working, should he expire before then. Still serves the same purpose."

Grayson shook his head and carried Cal away, who was screaming and sobbing, and just making a needless show of things.

"He loses one arm, and he acts like it's the end of the world," said Alexia, and she shook her head. "He has another one. Goodness."

"He's lucky I didn't kill him." Alfred paused, tilting his head. "At least right away, anyway. Assuming he doesn't survive the trip to the infirmary." He looked over at Ricky, who was still slumped forward in the chair. Tightening his grip around the haft of the hammer, Alfred strode over and started cracking at Ricky's head. "How dare you," he yelled, smashing a child's fist-sized hole into Ricky's skull, "think you can come waltzing in here to desecrate my sister."

"Alfred, dear brother, he's dead," said Alexia. "Very, very dead. You can stop now."

Alfred stopped, panting heavily. "I'm going to have every prisoner, and every guard, in their quadrant executed," said Alfred, and he turned, started stomping up the stairs. "Then I'm blocking off those tunnels. Lots and lots of bloody concrete. King Kong himself won't be able to punch through when I'm done."

"Oh, Alfred. Ever so dramatic," said Alexia.


	31. File 13 - Reality Disorder - End

The aquarium light flooded his eyes, and as it receded, he saw her then, suspended in the tube.

 _Impostor_.

The room became more tangible. Focused. Definitive. It was cold, and his breath steamed in the air. Computers whirred around him, a dozen monitors glaring at him like the eyes of some enormous monster. Alfred looked at the tube. A woman, naked, that looked like Alexia. But no, he thought, it couldn't be Alexia; Alexia was alive.

"Alexia," he was sure he'd said, and he pressed a hand to the glass, and it was warm, like flesh. He stared at his thirteen-year-old reflection in the glass, understanding.

 _Impostor._

"Alexia is dead," said the psychiatrist, from somewhere far away. The room glitched. He saw the desk, the psychiatrist in his tweed suit and cheap glasses. Then the world fuzzed into static, and he was back in the aquarium-lit room, in the concrete dark. "She's an invention, Alfred," he said, and the psychiatrist's voice dropped several octaves into demonic bass. "The Alexia you see is a coping mechanism your mind devised to reconcile the pain of her death, Alfred. She isn't real. She never was."

"Not true," said Alfred, staring into the glass, at the strange woman on the other side. He curled his fingers into fists and banged once on the glass. "My Alexia is real," he shouted. "This, this is the impostor."

He banged his fists against the glass until it tinkled and started to crack, ice-cold water leaking down his arms.

The room flickered again, and he saw thirteen-year-old Alexia standing in front of the window in their attic, lit from behind in a nimbus of artificial sunlight like some holy saint. The dragonfly wriggled in the ant terrarium on the table in front of her, and when Alfred looked at it, his head felt as if it was being torn open.

"I need you to wake me up," she said to him. "It's the only way."

"Alexia is already awake," shouted Alfred, and he was watching himself now, a ghost observing the scene. He watched himself storm across the room and grab Alexia's black cardigan, then push her up against the window-glass. "You're a fake. A lie," said Alfred, his eyes wide and blue, like crystals vibrating with some nameless mad frequency. "Alexia is alive. You're planning to usurp her, aren't you? To take her place."

Alfred pushed Alexia through the window—the tube-glass shattered, ice-cold liquid crashing over him like a breaker. The pale thing inside the tube, the pale thing that wasn't Alexia, came away from its harness of rubber cables, and it was dead. He stared at the expressionless doll-face, at its dead blue eyes, and he felt triumphant, understood, then, what he needed to do.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror of scrolled French gold-leaf. He understood, and he started laughing. "Yes, that's right," said Alfred, and he started up the steps. "I _remember_."

"Cross-dressing freak," he heard Claire Redfield say.

But it didn't matter, no. He had something far more important to do.

Time had become nebulous to him, and soon, Alfred found himself walking through a cold facility beside Grayson, and he didn't remember how they'd gotten here. A plane, glaciers. The rest of the details evaporated.

"Why are we here, Alfred?" asked Grayson. He was dressed in a flight suit, and old thermal gear. When had he changed his clothes? Alfred looked down. He wore a flight suit and thermal gear too, but hadn't remembered changing into them. "Did we really come here just to chase Claire and Steve?"

 _Kill the impostor_.

But was it really an impostor, he thought to himself. "Alexia," he said, "is alive."

"Fifteen years, she was alive," said Grayson, and his expression darkened, his eyes promising to hurt him. "And you _lied_ _t_ o me about it, Alfred? You knew— _know_ —how much I love her. And you just _stayed quiet_ about it?"

"I'd forgotten," said Alfred, and he doubled over suddenly, winded by a punch to the gut. "Okay," he rasped. "I deserved that."

 _Impostor_.

Alexia is dead, said the psychiatrist.

They scuffled, and Alfred won, helped Grayson up off the floor. Grayson was strong, but too predictable, which was why he'd always served better as the muscle, as the oafish sidekick. "She had tasked me," said Alfred, studying his sapphire ring, his family proof, now, "with waking her up. But between my _episodes_ , that knowledge had fallen through the cracks..."

"Why didn't she tell me? Didn't she trust me?"

"Of course she trusted you, Grayson," said Alfred, and he looked at him, wondering what his sister had ever seen in the butler. A handsome face certainly, and the uncanny ability to follow orders to the letter, like a proper minion; but those things aside, Grayson offered nothing Alfred couldn't already give his sister. "A lot can happen in fifteen years, Grayson," he said. "Alexia wasn't sure if you would stay with us, once she was gone. I was the safer, surer option." It was a lie, of course. Alfred remembered now. Alexia had told him to tell Grayson, but Alfred never had. He wanted the distinct honor of waking his sister.

But that isn't your sister, said the psychiatrist. Your sister is dead, Alfred. The Alexia you see, it's an invention, a coping mechanism.

His head ached. Alfred saw the Picasso reprint in his head, burning like some evil star in the dark of the psychiatrist's office. La Vie, the piece was called. But in the picture, it was him, Alexia, and Grayson. Naked Alexia cradled loinclothed Grayson, and Alfred stood to their right in saint's robes, an infant he didn't recognize swaddled in his arms. And he wanted to kill it.

Then he was falling down, toward the concrete, and his chest hurt. Blood seeped through his flight suit, and dully, Alfred realized he'd been shot. He grabbed a fistful of Grayson's flight suit and whispered something to him, and he felt cold, as though his body was slowly being lowered into chilly seawater. And then, then Alfred felt nothing but the cold.

Two women were talking in a HAM station in some salt-mine, and one woman looked like Alfred: tall and willowy, and blonde, and maybe she could have been a movie star, if she'd gotten bored of science. The other woman was a redhead, or perhaps her hair was simply reddish brown, and she'd never wanted to be a movie star, she liked her job in the BSAA too much. They were arguing about something, but the blonde woman was silent; she was out cold, slumped forward in a fold-out chair. The redhead, if she noticed her partner was unconscious, didn't seem to care.

"Steve dying was ultimately your fault, Alexia," said the redhead, letting herself cry. "Sure, he killed Alfred. I get that. But it was necessary, and I think, if you'd seen your brother, you'd have eventually realized that, maybe too late. Alfred thought he was you. What if he, in some psychotic episode, thought you were a fucking impostor, then shot you dead? What then? What about Veronica and Grayson..."


	32. File 14 - The Runaway - Part 1

**Arklay Mountains, 1999**

 _Her parents were arguing again. Sherry spooned cereal into her mouth at the table, keeping her head down. Not that it mattered. They never really acknowledged her anyway._

 _"William, it's time to move on from this obsession of yours," her mom said, angrily jamming the glass pot into the coffee-maker. Her dad ignored her, staring angrily into space. "Are you even listening to me, William?"_

 _Her dad dragged his briefcase off the tiled counter. "Is the coffee almost ready? We need to get to NEST."_

 _"Alexia Ashford is dead," her mom said. "She's been dead. I need you to focus on our research."_

 _"This is my life's work, Annette. Not yours!"_

 _Her mom sloshed coffee into her favorite thermos, the one with the blue gingham print. "Sherry is sitting right there," her mom hissed, twisting on the plastic cap. "Stop acting like a child."_

 _Her dad suddenly looked tired, and seemed to, all at once, age twenty years. He poured coffee into his own thermos, splashing some on the counter. Her dad quickly wiped it away with a paper-towel. "Sorry," he said, crumpling the towel and tossing it into the trashcan. "You're right."_

 _"Alexia is dead, and NEST is yours," her mom said. "You've beaten her, William."_

 _Her dad said nothing._

Sherry woke, remembering she was on a bus, and that her parents had been dead for a year. She looked around. People swayed and bobbed in the gray-upholstered seats as the bus rocked and bounced on its axles. John Denver sang _Take Me Home, Country Roads_ on the radio, and Sherry only knew that because her dad had listened to John Denver. An old lady smiled at her, her gray hair tucked underneath a plastic bonnet, clutching an enormous embroidered purse in her arthritic hands. Sherry, awkwardly, smiled back.

Sherry had run away from the government people, because she'd heard Alexia was alive. She hadn't told Claire or Leon about it; they would have stopped her, and Sherry didn't want to be stopped. So much of her dad's life had revolved around his hatred of Alexia. That hatred had, Sherry had decided, been the driving force behind his G-Virus research. And after Raccoon City, after she'd watched her mom die because of that research, Sherry felt that Alexia owed her an explanation. Owed her something. Either closure, or a reason to hate her, too.

The bus pulled into a rest stop. She'd been riding it for a long time, and could still feel the vibrations from its movement in her legs, like static. The bus-driver told them they had thirty minutes. Sherry grabbed her backpack and disembarked, with no intention of getting back on.

Rest stops were always weird places, Sherry thought. So many different people from so many different places packed like sardines into these corporate microcosms of fiberglass and plastic.

Rest stops all looked the same, too, Sherry decided. There was always a food-court with the same kind of stuff, like pizza or hamburgers. Always a little shop that sold maps, or stupid things like T-shirts and keychains. Always bathrooms that were rarely cleaned.

Sherry waited for a middle-aged woman to finish her conversation on the payphone. The woman wore too much perfume, and it was bothering Sherry's sinuses. When she'd finally hung up and walked away, Sherry was relieved. She fed a few quarters into the coin-slot and dialed Umbrella's HR number from memory. Sherry waited for the recording to play, and pressed the button for a live representative.

"Umbrella Human Resources office," the woman said, in a rehearsed professional tone. "What can I do for you today?"

Sherry hadn't really thought this far ahead. She swallowed the lump in her throat, then said, in a small voice, "My name is Sherry Birkin—"

"Sherry Birkin?"

"Yes."

Silence.

"Hello?"

"Yes, I'm sorry. What can I do for you, Ms. Birkin?"

"I n-need an employee's address. Please."

"That is confidential information. I'll need to verify your identity. Your employee ID?"

Sherry automatically gave the woman her mom's ID. She heard her tapping on a keyboard.

"Annette Birkin is listed as deceased," the woman said. "Her clearances were terminated. I'm sorry, Ms. Birkin. And… my condolences."

"Please," Sherry pleaded. "I need to speak to Alexia Ashford."

Silence again. But Sherry could hear the woman murmuring to someone.

"Hello?"

"Yes, I'm sorry. Without the proper clearances, I can't give you that information, Ms. Birkin."

Sherry started to cry, but did her best not to sound like it. "I need to speak to Dr. Ashford," she said, composing herself. "Please, ma'am. It's important."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Birkin—wait. Transferring your call."

Innocuous hold music played. Then an old man spoke. Sherry had to listen really hard to hear him.

"Sherry Birkin? This is Oswell Spencer. You know who I am."

"Y-yes, sir," Sherry said, her hand sweating around the grubby handset. Oswell Spencer was the president of the Umbrella Corporation, and Sherry had never spoken to him before. But her dad had talked about him a lot.

"I'm sorry for the runaround you were given," Spencer said. He had a slight accent, Sherry decided. Maybe British. "Protocol, you see. You're looking for Alexia?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why? Because of your father?"

"S-something like that, sir."

Sherry heard Spencer cough. The cough sounded wet, and very bad. Like how she'd coughed when she'd had a pneumonia. "She's staying in an old property of mine in the Arklays. Do you have a pencil and paper?"

"Yes," she lied. Sherry would remember it.

Spencer gave her the address. Then he said, "Did you want her phone number? She has a mobile, you see. She never answers her landline. The bloody press, and those damned protesters."

Sherry was vaguely aware of the Raccoon Trials, mostly from Claire and Leon. Sometimes the government people talked about it, too. But Sherry didn't care about politics. It didn't matter. Raccoon City had happened, and no amount of talking was going to bring it back. Or bring back her parents. A tear slid down her cheek.

"Y-yes," she said, wiping her face with her jacket-sleeve. "I'd like that number, sir."

Spencer repeated it twice.

"Thank you, sir. I don't—"

"Know why I'm helping you? William was one of my best researchers. It's the least I can do, Sherry. And you deserve answers, after what happened in NEST."

Sherry wasn't sure why, but there was something about Spencer that she didn't trust. Kind of like how Chief Irons had seemed like a nice guy—until he'd threatened to kill her, after he'd locked her in a room.

"T-thank you, sir," she said. "This means a lot."

"Of course." Spencer hung up.

She hung the phone on its hook, then fed a few more quarters into the slot. Sherry dialed Alexia's number.

For the first time in her life, Sherry heard the voice of the woman her dad had hated so much. "This is Dr. Ashford," the woman said, and she sounded like how Sherry imagined every rich British woman sounded.

Sherry hesitated, tensing.

"Hello? Look, I'm a very busy woman—"

"My name is Sherry Birkin," she blurted.

Alexia didn't say anything, and Sherry thought she'd hung up. But then Sherry heard her breathing, and knew Alexia was still on the line.

"How did you get my number?"

"M-Mr. Spencer gave it to me. Please. Don't hang up."

"Lord Spencer did?"

"Yes."

"I see. What do you want?"

"I want to talk. Please, Dr. Ashford."

"I see," Alexia said, and paused. "Where are you?"

"Um. A rest stop." Sherry looked out the nearby window for some kind of marker that could pinpoint her location. The sign said it was the Arklay I-6 Rest Area. She told the name to Alexia.

"I know where that is. I'll be there in an hour."

"R-really? J-just like that?"

"Just like that. I have questions for you as well, little dear." Alexia hung up.

Sherry didn't like the sound of that.


	33. File 14 - The Runaway - Part 2

Sherry wasn't sure what to expect, once Alexia arrived. Sherry sat on the plastic bench by the window. The bench was too high for her, and her legs dangled a few inches above the tiled floor. The tile was the kind her school had had, with the little bumps that kept people from slipping. They were white, but looked gray from all the dirt and scuffs.

She watched the crowd now, paying particular attention to faces. Sherry remembered Alexia's face from the picture her daddy had taped to the dartboard in his study. Alexia was a lot older now, but Sherry figured she would know her when she saw her.

Nobody stood out.

She waited.

When Sherry glanced at the clock again, it was already thirty minutes past the time Alexia had said she'd be there. The sun was beginning to go down, and it would be chilly. Her jacket was the blue windbreaker her mom had bought her. She wore jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers. She really hadn't thought this through.

Sherry was debating whether or not to try walking to Alexia's house, despite not being dressed for the weather, when someone approached her. She stared at the toes of expensive-looking high-heels.

"Sherry?"

She looked up into the face from the photograph, but it was a little older now. Alexia was super pale. So was her hair, which looked almost white, and her eyes too, which made Sherry think of ice. Her make-up was really pretty.

"I apologize for the delay. Traffic." Alexia wore a really nice skirt-suit, like the kind her mom had sometimes worn to work. Her blouse was partially unbuttoned, a chain of diamonds sparkling across her collarbone, with a big ruby in the center. She smelled like flowers and vanilla.

"It's okay," Sherry said, tensing slightly.

Alexia looked at her watch, which looked as expensive as the rest of her outfit. "Hm. Come along. You know, you look like William." Her face never really changed, Sherry noticed. Like it was stuck on neutral.

"Mommy used to, um… say the same thing." She frowned, watching Alexia's heels clicking on the tile.

"I'm sorry." Alexia's apology sounded superficial. Her mom had told her that those kinds of apologies were just courtesies—like when someone went to a funeral, but didn't really know the person who'd died too well, and didn't want to seem rude. "Your mother was listed as deceased," she added, as if Sherry didn't know that already.

"I was in the room when she died."

Alexia nodded. "Sorry."

Sherry wiped a tear from her eye. "It's okay."

Alexia called her car a Rolls-Royce, and it was the nicest car Sherry had ever seen. The seats, Alexia informed her, were upholstered in hand-stitched Italian leather. Sherry climbed into the passenger's seat, which was on the left side instead of the right, and put her backpack on the ground between her feet.

"When did you meet my mom?" Sherry asked, as Alexia climbed behind the wheel.

"When I'd initially started out at Umbrella," Alexia replied, shutting her door. "I was, oh, thirteen? She was just a junior researcher then." She turned the keys in the ignition, and the CD player resumed playing. Sherry was pretty sure the song was _Personal Jesus_. Her mom had liked Depeche Mode, too. She'd listened to them whenever she was in the laboratory. Sherry had never been in her parent's laboratory, but her dad had complained that Depeche Mode was all her mom listened to.

She told Alexia that.

"Is that so?" Alexia said, without looking at her. She ran her tongue across her teeth, and said nothing else.

"You're not gonna hurt me, are you? Like Chief Irons."

"No," Alexia said. "I'm not."

Sherry rubbed her wrist. "He didn't hurt me super bad. But he grabbed my wrist really hard. I thought he was gonna break it."

"Brian Irons assaulted a woman in his college years, and only avoided jail because the court forced him to undergo psychiatric evaluation. Breaking a little girl's wrist is hardly out of the realm of possibilities with that one. What happened to him?"

"Daddy."

Alexia nodded. "The G-creature. Whatever William called it."

"Yes. He… put something in Chief Iron's mouth. I ran away."

"Corroborates the files I'd read on the G-creature's… reproductive measures."

"Yes."

"You were infected with it," Alexia said.

"Yes. But mommy, she healed me before..."

"Before she died."

Sherry swallowed the lump in her throat. "Yes."

"I lost my brother a few months ago," Alexia said, conversationally. The headlights of a passing car flashed through the window, and Sherry saw Alexia's face. She looked sad. Then it was dark again, and Sherry could only see the dashboard lights in Alexia's eyes. "He was murdered."

"I'm really sorry," Sherry said, and meant it. But in some weird way, it comforted her. Someone hurt as much as she did, because someone they loved had died. It made Sherry think of something Claire had once said to her. About how it wasn't a bad thing that both their parents were gone, because it meant they had something in common.

"I've had time to grieve."

"What… what happened to your parents?"

Alexia didn't say anything right away. Then, after a long silence, "Dead."

"I guess we have something in common," Sherry said, without thinking. And regretted it. It had sounded better in her head.

Alexia smiled, but it was such a small smile that Sherry couldn't even be sure that it was there at all. "I suppose we do."

"Do you ever miss them, Dr. Ashford?"

"Not my actual parents, no," Alexia said, automatically. "But I miss my butler, Scott. He was like a father to me." She paused. Sherry listened to the muted noise of the radio, the grumbling tires. "He died a few months ago. Not long after my brother."

"What happened to him?"

"Heart failure."

Sherry bit her lip, wringing her hands. Maybe she shouldn't have asked. "I'm sorry," she said.

"So am I."

"Do you work in Arklay City, Dr. Ashford?"

"I do."

"At NEST 2? Mommy mentioned it..."

Alexia sighed. "Seems you know more than I'd thought. Yes. I work there. I'm the facility's director."

"Mommy told me Umbrella was investing lots of money into Arklay City," Sherry continued, watching Alexia. "And that was why Raccoon City was getting so bad. Why crime was so high. The money was going away."

"Umbrella wants to develop this entire region," Alexia said. "Starting with Arklay City. Raccoon City was… a prototype, I suppose. But one we'd hoped to turn into something grander than what it had been."

"What happened in Raccoon City won't happen again? Right?"

"We've learnt from our mistakes, Sherry." Alexia looked at her, then said, "May I suggest something?"

"Okay."

"Don't ever talk about NEST 2. Understood?"

Sherry sensed a warning in Alexia's tone. "Y-yes, Dr. Ashford," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Good girl."


	34. File 14 - The Runaway - Part 3

Sherry wondered how long it took to reach Alexia's house. Alexia had said it would only take her an hour to reach the rest area. But then Sherry remembered the number Spencer had given her had been Alexia's cell-phone, so she could have been anywhere. She started to, silently, panic. What if Alexia was taking her somewhere to hurt her? Maybe somewhere deep in the woods, where nobody, not even Claire, would ever find her body.

"Where are you taking me?" Sherry asked, trembling, fear settling over her like a cold, wet blanket.

"To my home," Alexia said, without looking at her. "Where else?"

"You're gonna hurt me," Sherry said, fumbling for the door lock. "Let me out!"

"I'm not going to do anything to you," Alexia said, and looked at her. "I told you, I have—"

Alexia's attention suddenly snapped back to the road, and she jerked the wheel really hard to the right. The car did a half-spin, started to skid into the other lane, but Alexia managed to brake hard enough that it stopped. Nobody else on the road right now, at least from what Sherry could see, so they didn't have to worry about oncoming traffic.

"What happened?" Sherry asked. It was quiet in the car, except for the rain pattering on the windshield and the hood, and the soft noises of the radio.

"There was something in the road," Alexia said, still gripping the wheel. "You didn't see it?"

Sherry shook her head.

Then something crashed through the windshield and wrapped around Sherry's head, something like a wet mouth sucking at her face. She screamed. Then Alexia shot it twice, and it retreated back through the shattered window with a groan. Sherry wanted to cry, and she touched her face to make sure everything was still there. It was.

"Now's not the time for crying," Alexia said.

Sherry wiped her face and nodded, shaking all over. She saw it then, the thing that attacked her. A giant pulsing blob of flesh. It bubbled on the road, started to expand, and became some half-humanoid thing covered in yellowish pustules. But if it had ever been human at all, it was so deformed that Sherry couldn't be sure.

The thing crawled toward the car. It used its giant misshapen arm as a kind of hook to drag itself across the road. A giant red eye swiveled in a socket where its shoulder should have been.

Alexia fired two more shots through the windshield, but the thing kept coming. Shaking her head, Alexia holstered the gun in a leather shoulder rig Sherry hadn't seen before, because it had been under her blazer.

"Alexia, you have to do something."

"I am," Alexia said, and slammed her foot on the gas-pedal.

The car rocketed toward the monster, but instead of running it over like Alexia had probably meant to do, it rolled across the asphalt instead. Sherry hit her head hard on the dashboard. Everything was kind of blurry, and her head ached, and she felt kind of sick, like she wanted to throw up. Then it went dark.

Sherry wasn't sure how long she'd been in the car when Alexia dragged her from the wreckage and laid her on the cold, wet ground. "Hold on," she was pretty sure she'd heard Alexia say, but her voice had sounded like it was underwater.

Alexia's face kept blinking in and out of existence. At one point, she shined a light in Sherry's eyes and told her it would be okay.

When Sherry woke up again, she was on Alexia's back, and they were walking through the woods. Alexia was super warm, but not in a good way. Like she had a fever. But Alexia didn't look sick at all.

"What happened?" Sherry asked.

"G-organism. Adult," Alexia said. "Raccoon's sterilization should have wiped them—"

"They were in the sewers," Sherry said, her head aching badly.

"Shit."

"Why are we in the woods?"

"We're not far from my home," Alexia said. Her hair smelled really nice. It also smelled like smoke, but Sherry didn't remember any fires. She realized the sleeves on Alexia's jacket had been burned away.

"What happened to your jacket?"

"The car caught fire," Alexia said.

"I don't remember any fire."

"You were out cold, little dear."

Sherry felt tired. "Am I gonna be okay?"

"You'll be fine. Annette didn't entirely cure you of the G-Virus. Vestiges remain. You have antibodies that help your body recover quickly."

"Does that mean I'm gonna mutate?"

"No," Alexia said, and shook her head. "You're not." She stopped walking. "Shit. I need to put you down for a moment, Sherry. Will you be all right?"

"Yes," Sherry said, and slid off Alexia's back.

Her legs felt like jelly, and her head still kind of hurt, but Sherry was pretty sure she was okay. She watched Alexia take a small flashlight from the remains of her jacket and turn it on. Sherry followed her down a slight embankment.

They were by a river. It stank really bad, like garbage someone had left in the sun too long, or a hot sewer. She saw a drainage pipe set in water-stained concrete, and the water bubbling out of it was sludgy, almost stew-like, and very brown. Alexia shined her flashlight on the stew-water. It didn't even reflect the light.

"I was afraid of this," Alexia said.

In the water, Sherry now realized, were several bodies. Bloated and gross-looking. As Alexia walked closer—she didn't go into the water—one of the bodies suddenly heaved, and its back exploded. Something crawled out of it and scurried into the water, swimming toward Alexia. Alexia shot it.

Sherry heard a high-pitched squeal, and an alien-looking pink thing lay curled on its back, like a dead spider. It looked, Sherry decided, like a cross between a tadpole or worm, and a human baby.

"Fuck. This whole fucking drainage pipe is probably a fucking nest," Alexia said.

"N-Nest?"

"G-organisms. That was a juvenile, the thing I shot," Alexia said. "Close your eyes, Sherry."

"W-Why?"

"Just fucking do it."

She did. Sherry smelled chemicals and fire, but was pretty sure Alexia hadn't brought any kerosene with her. Burning meat and hair, and garbage. And then nothing—just lingering fumes. She opened her eyes again, even though Alexia hadn't told her to, and saw her standing by the river, a fire fizzling out in her hand.

"How d-did you—I didn't see you bring any gasoline, or kerosene."

"I didn't tell you to open your bloody eyes."

"I'm sorry."

Alexia didn't acknowledge her apology. Sherry wasn't even sure if she'd heard it. "We need to get to the house. Now. This is bad."

One of the bodies—Sherry guessed Alexia had missed that one, because it had been buried under all the others—stood up and groaned. Alexia shot it in the head, half its skull dissolving into a spray of blood. It fell, limply, back into the pile of corpses.

" _Now_ , Sherry," Alexia snapped, the gun disappearing behind her lapel.


	35. File 14 - The Runaway - Part 4

They went down into the basement, and that worried Sherry; basements were the sort of places where bad things happened in the movies.

The wooden stairs creaked underneath them. The steps felt really unsafe, like they'd collapse if Sherry put too much weight on them. When they reached the bottom, Sherry heard Alexia flip a switch. A sickly orange light, from a bulb dangling on a rusty chain, flickered on.

Grimy brickwork walls. A wet concrete floor. Water, from a copper pipeline above them, dripped into a large brown puddle at the foot of a bloated wooden wine-rack. The bottles on the rack were dusty, like they'd sat there for years.

"Apologies for the mess," Alexia said, her voice echoing in the space.

Sherry watched a spider skitter across the bricks, then disappear into a crack. "It's—it's okay."

"Now," Alexia said, and looked at her, "listen to me well. What you're about to see? You are to tell no one. Do you understand?" Her eyes were spooky, Sherry decided. Pale, pale blue, and seemed to stab into her head.

"Y-yes, Dr. Ashford. I-I promise," Sherry said, and meant it.

Alexia pushed in several bricks, like buttons, on the back wall. Sherry heard a grinding noise, and a secret door slid open, revealing a rectangle of bright white light. If Sherry hadn't already seen NEST, she would have thought it was cool; but a secret door seemed pretty lame compared to a giant underground laboratory.

Alexia disappeared into the light. Sherry followed her, wondering if they were going to NEST 2. An elevator paneled in chrome. She watched Alexia push the DOWN button. The doors slid shut.

The elevator rumbled, then started its smooth descent. Alexia didn't say anything the whole way down.

Then the elevator stopped, and the doors opened.

One half of the room was a Victorian study with dark red-papered walls with a golden flower print (" _Fleur-de-lis,_ " Alexia informed her, when Sherry asked about it). Huge bookcases lined the walls, and made Sherry think of her daddy's den, of all the giant books he'd kept there. A big portrait of a woman in a frilly pink dress, framed in gold, hung above a glass case that sat behind Alexia's desk. The case contained a really, really old book called __De humani corporis fabrica libri septem__. Sherry couldn't understand the whole title, but knew enough that it had something to do with the human body. Her parents had taught her some Latin, because scientists used a lot of Latin words.

The other half of the room was a small laboratory. Sherry could see several glass tanks through a window partition, a computer, and lots of complicated-looking machines. Giant ants skittered around in the tanks; they looked gross—like giant pimples with legs.

"Are those ants okay?"

"Yes," Alexia said, and sat down at her desk. She looked at something on her computer, her tea steaming beside a stack of papers. Sherry peeked at the papers; they were important-looking faxes. Her dad used to fax things a lot, and once Sherry had asked him if she could fax something too, but he'd told her no, it was only for grown-ups.

"Will you tell me now why daddy hated you? And those things back there—"

"Your father didn't like the fact I was younger than him, and appointed as a chief researcher," Alexia said. Then she got quiet. The grandfather clock in the corner of the room ticked loudly. Sherry heard Alexia clicking her mouse.

"That's all?"

Alexia didn't answer her. She stared at her computer screen. Sherry tried to look at her screen, mostly because she wanted to see what was so interesting about it; but Alexia caught her and said it was rude to read over people's shoulders. Sherry blushed, quickly apologized, and sat down in the giant armchair on the other side of the desk.

"Those things—"

"G-creatures," Alexia said, clicking her mouse. She looked like she was reading something on the screen; her eyes kept darting back and forth. Then, "I've been monitoring their breeding for the last several months. It started in the sewers."

"Mommy was down in the sewers. Did it have something to do with those things?"

"It was Annette's research that allowed me to stymie their colony growth," Alexia said. She finally looked at Sherry. "Your mother spent a week or so keeping very, very detailed notes about the G-creatures. She was trying to stop them."

In the sewers, when her mom had said she didn't have time for Sherry, Sherry had been convinced her mom didn't love her. But her mom had been trying to stop the G-Virus from spreading. She'd been trying to save the world.

Sherry felt tears stinging her eyes. All this time, Claire had been right; her mom really had loved her.

"Don't cry, Sherry. You're a big girl. Tears are for infants."

"We can't all be robots like you," Sherry shot back, wiping her eyes.

Alexia's face didn't show any kind of emotion. She plucked a tissue from a box on her desk and offered it without a word.

"Sorry," Sherry said, and blew her nose.

"Emotions breed mistakes, Sherry. I rarely make mistakes."

"Have you ever cried? About anything?" Sherry asked seriously, clutching the tissue. Alexia nudged over a small plastic trash-can lined with a white garbage bag. She tossed the wadded tissue into the trash, into a pile of shredded and crumpled papers.

"Yes," Alexia said, and placed a bottle of hand sanitizer in front of her.

Sherry squeezed the soap into her hand and rubbed them together, the alcohol stinging her nose. "About what?"

"Does it matter?" she said, and stood. She seemed bigger, somehow. Alexia was one of those people, Sherry decided—the kind of person who seemed to fill rooms whenever they walked into them. The sort of people, her dad had once told her, who cast long shadows.

"I guess not."

"Good girl."

"Dr. Ashford?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you monitoring the G-creatures?"

Alexia smiled, but it was a really cold smile. "Preserving buyer confidence and seller integrity," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"I am, among other things, a businesswoman, little dear," Alexia said, slowly pacing the room, the floorboards creaking slightly under her shoes. "People want to blame Umbrella for what happened. But if Umbrella cleans up their mess? Well." Alexia shrugged. "It looks good for us."

"I guess that makes sense," Sherry said, folding her arms across her chest and drawing her knees up. She felt tiny in the gigantic armchair. "But it is Umbrella's fault," she added, frowning.

"It's the fault of rogue scientists, Sherry." Alexia stopped pacing. "Umbrella's investigation committee summoned your father, but dear William decided to ignore them." She shook her head, slowly. "When William failed to comply with the USS, he was killed. He brought it on himself by exacerbating the issue, Sherry. He pulled a gun, the idiot, and paid for it. Had he come along quietly? Raccoon City would have _never_ happened."

Sherry shot up in her chair. "Umbrella sent the bad men to murder him?"

"We didn't send them to murder him. He was asked to come quietly. Then William pulled a gun, and a rookie with an itchy trigger-finger shot him." Alexia frowned. "Martinez, the rookie, has already been dealt with. So take some comfort in that."

"They killed my dad!" Sherry snapped.

"Your father did it to himself, Sherry," Alexia said coldly. "It's nobody's fault but his. Nobody told him to try to flee the company and sell his virus to a competitor, because dear William felt he was getting a raw deal. Nobody told him to pull a gun. Nobody told him to inject himself with an unstable virus—"

"Shut up!" Sherry yelled, and darted from the chair, pushing Alexia, who stumbled, but didn't fall down. Sherry shoved her again. "Stop talking bad about him, just 'cause you hate him!" She swung at her, but Alexia caught her by the wrist and squeezed hard. "You're hurting my wrist," Sherry snapped. "Let go!"

Alexia let go.

Sherry darted past her, into the elevator. She slapped the UP button. Then the doors slid shut, and the elevator rumbled and started its ascent.

She sat against the wall and cried.


	36. File 14 - The Runaway - Part 5

Sherry wanted to run away, but knew there was nowhere she could run to. The mansion was in the middle of the woods, and it was cold outside. So she hid in the house instead, because it was really big.

She'd found an empty guest bedroom and had curled up on the bed. Sherry stared out the window opposite her; it was so dark that she could barely see the trees outside. It freaked her out a little; she didn't like darkness. Maybe it was because of Raccoon City. She'd spent so long underground, and in other dark places, that daytime had hurt her eyes when Sherry had finally seen it again.

The door creaked open. Her heart stopped. Her first instinct was to hide under the bed, so Sherry did.

A man's shoes. They were big and shiny, the kind of shoes her daddy had worn to important meetings. The kind of shoes Chief Irons had worn when she'd hidden under a table in the orphanage to hide from him.

"Sherry?"

The voice sounded familiar. It was deep, and sounded like it belonged to someone from New York City.

"G-Grayson?"

The shoes stopped in front of the bed, the narrow toes pointed toward her. "Come out from under there," Grayson said.

She did. "You left us," she said. "In Raccoon City."

"Alfred needed my help, Sherry."

"Mom died. You could have saved her."

"There's no guarantee I could have. But I wish I'd tried."

Sherry looked up at Grayson. He wore a black suit and sunglasses, even though there wasn't any sun, and a shiny silver wrist-watch. "You never came to get me," Sherry said, scowling, her hands balling into shaky fists. "You _promised_ you'd come back to get me and mommy!" she continued, louder. "She was gonna divorce my daddy for you, you big jerk! You said it would be us, once you got back…."

"Things happened, Sherry," Grayson said. "Things I had no control over."

"It was because of Alexia, right?" Sherry yelled, and punched him in his leg. But the punch had hurt her hand more than it had seemed to hurt Grayson. She winced, rubbing her knuckles. "You finally had Alexia back, so you didn't care about us." Sherry wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at him. Then, "Mom never really mattered to you, did she? Just like Jill Valentine never mattered. That's why you were cheating on Jill to be with mommy, right? 'Cause neither of them really mattered. They weren't Alexia."

"That's not it," Grayson told her. "I loved Annette."

"But you loved Alexia more, right? So you left mommy to _die_ in Raccoon City."

"That's—enough of this shit, Sherry. I saw you run in here. You only hide when something bad happens."

Sherry frowned, her emotions frothing into a foamy mess. She wanted to hate Grayson, but couldn't bring herself to do that. He was the closest thing to family Sherry had left, now that her parents and cousins were dead. Alexia had been one reason she'd come here, and Grayson had been the other; Sherry figured that, wherever Alexia was, Grayson wasn't too far away. He'd always been obsessed with her.

She fiddled with her hands, her knuckles still sore. "Alexia told me it was daddy's fault that he died," she said quietly, looking at the lacquered hardwood between her shoes. "Because he didn't cooperate with Umbrella."

"Alexia and William were enemies," Grayson said, and sighed like her daddy whenever he'd had a bad headache. "Of course she'd say something like that." He shook his head and sat on the edge of the bed. He looked like a giant bear, Sherry decided. "Look," he said, rubbing his knees. "Alexia's always been like that. She's not real tactful, not where it counts. She didn't hurt you, did she?"

Sherry shook her head. "I hit her, though."

"Shouldn't hit people, Sherry. But Alexia's tough, so she'll be fine."

"I'm sorry for hitting you, Grayson."

"Don't worry about it. I don't blame you for hitting me. Would've probably done the same, if I was you." Grayson stared at her. Sherry swore she could see two little red dots where his eyes should have been, like the laser-pointers her teachers had used. He reached into his blazer and took out a Polaroid photograph: her, her mommy, and Grayson, when they'd brought her to the Raccoon City Zoo for her ninth birthday. The picture had been taken outside the tiger habitat. Sherry remembered it had been really hot that day. "You should have it," he told her. "I've got a good memory. I can remember it just fine."

Sherry took the Polaroid and stared at her mom. She wore her favorite Talking Heads T-shirt, and a pair of jeans. It was one of the few photographs where her mom was actually smiling, and not just pretending to. She even wore make-up in the picture, and her mom had rarely ever worn make-up. "Does Alexia know about this?" Sherry asked.

"No," Grayson said. "She wouldn't understand."

"She'd get jealous?"

"Immensely," Grayson said, and nodded, sitting a little straighter. "I want Annette's memory to stay clean. I don't need Alexia slinging mud at it. Much as I love her, she's got the emotional control of a thirteen-year-old."

"She didn't seem very emotional," Sherry said.

"She's usually not. But when she is?" Grayson shook his head.

Sherry looked at the photograph one more time, then slipped it inside her back-pocket. "Thank you, Grayson."

"I've got other photographs like that. An album I'd started when I'd moved to Raccoon City. I'll give it to you."

"I'd really like that," Sherry said, and smiled.

Grayson nodded. "So would I." He stood, then extended his hand. "Come on. I'll get you something to eat. Then try to talk some decorum into Alexia."


	37. File 14 - The Runaway - Part 6 - End

Sherry waited outside the dining room. Grayson and Alexia had been talking in there for a really long time, and when the door opened, Alexia came out and stared at her. She looked mad—but not super mad, which was good; Sherry had been worried Alexia would yell and tell her to leave the house.

"I'm sorry." Alexia's expression didn't change.

"I'm sorry for pushing you, Dr. Ashford."

"It's fine," Alexia said, and she started to walk away.

"Where are you going, Dr. Ashford?"

"I have to look into something."

"What?"

Alexia turned and looked at her, hands on her hips. "The G-creatures."

"Is—is something gonna happen?" Sherry asked, scared. It was the kind of scared she'd been the night Raccoon City had happened, when she'd started to notice the bad things happening—the zombies, the people running through the streets, the soldiers and policemen telling everyone to take shelter at the Raccoon City Police Department...

But she'd locked the doors and stayed in the house that night, because the bad things had scared her. She'd hoped and hoped her parents would come home at some point—and that everything would suddenly be okay when they did.

That was how Sherry felt right now. The fear of waiting and waiting for everything to be okay again, but knowing it wouldn't.

"Possibly."

"Like Raccoon City?"

Alexia sighed, rubbed the space between her eyes. "Possibly."

"You—you won't let that happen, right? Umbrella's already in big trouble."

"I know." Alexia turned and started walking away again. She stopped, turned around again, and stared at her. Her eyes, and the way Alexia stared and never seemed to blink, reminded Sherry of her cousin's mean cat. "I'll do what I can," she said.

Sherry watched Alexia walk away, then vanish around a corner. Grayson stood beside her. She wondered if he'd been there the entire time. "Alexia means it, you know," he said. "She's gonna take care of those G-creatures, kiddo."

"I hope you're right, Grayson."

He patted her head. His hand was really big and heavy. "She doesn't have a choice," he said. "Alexia's got a daughter to think about now."

"Does she even care about Veronica?" Sherry asked, and looked up at him. "I've never seen her hold her."

"She's still adjusting to the mom thing," Grayson said, and gestured for her to follow him. They went into the parlor. Sherry watched Grayson pick through the books on a shelf, select one, and walk over to her. "Here," he said, and handed it to her.

PHOTO ALBUM was stamped on the leather cover in embossed gold letters. It reminded Sherry of the fancy-looking books her daddy had kept in his study, the ones she'd never seen him read or touch. She opened it.

Photos were displayed in the plastic sheets that served as pages; it made Sherry think of her collection of Pokemon cards, when she'd still owned a collection of Pokemon cards. She missed her cards. Claire had bought her a new pack after Raccoon City, and said she'd help Sherry rebuild her collection.

Sherry wondered how Claire was doing now, or if she was even looking for her. Was Leon? She started to leaf through the pages of the photo album, the pages crinkling loudly.

The pictures started with Grayson as a young adult—the marker on the Polaroid said 1989—and in a lot of the pictures, he was standing with a mean-looking man with blonde hair and pale blue eyes. In the picture she was looking at now, the pale man and Grayson were on a boat.

"He looks like Alexia," Sherry said, and sat on the couch.

"Her twin brother. You'd met him when you were little," Grayson said, and sat down beside her. "You'd called him a Disney prince. That picture's from right after college graduation. Alfred took me sailing on his yacht. We were off the coast of Crete."

"I don't remember him."

"Don't worry about it," Grayson said.

"What happened to Alfred?"

"He was murdered."

Sherry frowned. "I'm sorry."

"It's been a while. It's fine."

Sherry slowly turned the pages, looking at every photograph. She recognized a few people. In one picture, Grayson and Alfred were standing with Mr. Wesker. In another, Sherry saw her parents. Her dad had a beer in his hand and didn't look very happy, and her mom was smiling and sunburned, holding a baby.

"Why do you have a picture of my dad?"

"William hated having his photograph taken, so of course I took it. This was at some picnic thing Umbrella threw for its employees." Grayson pointed at the baby and said, "Bet you know who that is."

"Me."

"You were only a year-old. Kept running away from Annette. Was pretty funny. She spent the whole day chasing you around."

Sherry turned the page. Another picture of her mom. It was almost professional quality; her mom stood in her lab coat and jeans on a rainy sidewalk, outside some kind of bar.

"I had this whole phase where I was really into photography," Grayson explained, chuckling. "Annette volunteered to be my guinea pig. She wore that damn lab-coat everywhere. Even to the bar."

"Mommy spent a lot of time at work," Sherry said, and paused. Then, "Did you really love her, Grayson?"

"I did."

"Really?"

"Really."

Sherry turned the page, almost at the end of the album. Grayson was dressed in an RPD uniform in this picture, leaned against a police car.

"I hated bartending," he said. "I became a cop because I wanted a good career, you know? So I could take care of you and your mom when she finally broke it off with Bill. You know she was gonna serve him the divorce papers right before Raccoon City hit?" Grayson paused, then said, "Shit, I shouldn't be telling you this."

"It's okay," Sherry said, and meant it. "Mommy was… unhappy. Daddy and her always fought. I used to hate coming home from school whenever they were both home, because all they did was fight and argue." Sherry frowned. "His research was more important than us, I guess. But you paid attention to us, Grayson—and you never yelled at mommy."

"I could never bring myself to yell at Annette. Bill put her through enough bullshit."

"She loved you, you know," Sherry said, and looked at him. "She never told me that, but I knew."

"I know she did." Grayson frowned, stared at something. Then he said, "I don't like thinking about that time. Raccoon City messed me up. I saw some fucked up shit there. I suppressed those memories best I could. Even managed to convince myself I'd forgotten most of it. Pretended I didn't know Claire when—shit."

"You never saw her after Raccoon City, right?" Sherry asked.

"Yeah," Grayson said, and Sherry wasn't sure if he was lying or not. "Never saw her again." He looked at her. "I'm sorry about your mom, Sherry," he said suddenly. "Watching Annette die like that was… it hurt. I couldn't even recover her body from NEST. The very least I could have done for her, and I couldn't."

"The lab was blowing up, Grayson. None of us could have."

"I should have tried," Grayson said, and sighed. He was quiet for a long time. Then, "But I guess you're right. We were on a short clock."

Sherry grabbed his hand. "You did try, Grayson," she said. "You followed mommy and tried to convince her to stop. You wanted to keep her safe." She suddenly felt guilty, and said, "I'm sorry for saying you'd abandoned us."

"I did abandon you," he said, and moved his hand from hers. "I went to Rockfort and pretended Raccoon City never happened. I never looked for you."

"It's okay," Sherry said. "You didn't want any reminders."

"Maybe," Grayson said, and nodded slowly. "Yeah. Maybe that was it." He stood and said, "Something like Raccoon City can't happen again. Alexia's the best chance we've got."

"Is she a good guy now?"

Grayson laughed. "No. She's a pragmatist."


End file.
